The headline says it all. The long-awaited Volcker Tax Reform Commission report was released last Friday and was immediately put on a shelf someplace in the basement of the Ways and Means Committee. According to the Commission members:

The Board was asked to consider various options for achieving these goals but was asked to exclude options that would raise taxes for families with incomes less than $250,000 a year. We interpreted this mandate not to mean that every option we considered must avoid a tax increase on such families, but rather that the options taken together should be revenue neutral for each income class with annual incomes less than $250,000.

In general, the report’s authors sought to provide “helpful advice to the Administration” on “options for changes in the current tax system to achieve three broad goals: simplifying the tax system, improving taxpayer compliance with existing tax laws, and reforming the corporate tax system.” The Board was not asked to consider major tax reforms.

Just how helpful this advice is remains to be seen, but the low-key manner in which the report was released suggests the Administration does not see the report itself as a useful message vehicle. Proposals to raise taxes seldom are.

For S corporations, two recommendations stand out:

Payroll Tax Provision: The report suggests that payroll tax policy could be changed so that all active S corporation shareholders, LLC members and limited partners pay payroll taxes on all distributions from their businesses. Under the heading of “Disadvantages,” the report states:

The revenues raised from the proposal would come primarily from owners of small businesses. Moreover, it would impose employment taxes on income that is partially a return on capital rather than a return on labor.

Our point exactly.

Business Structure Neutrality: As a part of corporate tax reform, the report states that “a goal of reform in this area is tax neutrality with respect to organizational form” including these two options:

One option would be to require firms with certain “corporate” characteristicsb – publicly traded businesses, businesses satisfying certain income or asset thresholds, or businesses with a large number of shareholders “to pay the corporate income tax. In effect, this would broaden the corporate tax base by applying the corporate tax to more businesses.”

An alternative option would eliminate the double taxation of corporate income and harmonize tax rates on corporate and non-corporate income through “integration” with the individual income tax. In one example of such a system, individual investors would be credited for all or part of the tax paid at the corporate level against their individual taxes.

 

In other words, you could harmonize the tax treatment of business income by either imposing the corporate tax on more entities or by reducing the double tax currently paid by C corporation shareholders. Again, the disadvantages of option one highlighted by the Commission speak volumes:

Achieving neutrality between corporate and non-corporate businesses by subjecting more businesses to the corporate tax would increase the cost of capital and thus decrease investment in those businesses.

Yep.

More on Pending Tax Hikes

 

Our friends on the Hill pointed out a new survey of the National Association of Business Economists membership on the pending tax hikes. The survey found that more than half of NABE economists support extending all the marginal tax rates (including the upper brackets) while six out of ten support keeping the rates on capital gains and dividends at 15 percent. Other interesting results:

  • Three quarters support promoting economic growth over reducing the deficit;
  • Three quarters oppose further fiscal stimulus; and
  • A large plurality support “clarity on future regulation and tax policy” over other ways in which the government can best “encourage increased employment.”

 

We are hearing this last point repeatedly these days — the best thing Congress can do is provide a little policy certainty to the markets. Congress is not doing the things it is supposed to (budgets, tax extenders, etc.) while it is considering and adopting dramatic changes to rules by which businesses relate to their employees, their customers, and their government. Markets do not like uncertainty, yet the current policy climate here in D.C. is rife with it. CNN points out that in the area of tax policy alone, more than 100 tax relief provisions affecting just about everybody are waiting to be extended.

 

Finally, on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, four out of five respondents did not believe the Commission would produce a credible plan that could pass Congress. On that one, we’re not so sure.B A growing number of smart folks around town are suggesting the Commission may be the best chance we have in the next couple years to get the federal deficit under control. Maybe; but either way, we’re guessing that report won’t be released on a Friday.