As the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction considers tax reform options, a large and diverse group of business associations has written to the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means Committees making clear that any effort to reform the tax code must be comprehensive and it must recognize the critical contribution pass-through businesses make to investment and job creation in the United States.
Released on Wednesday, October 12th and signed by 44 business associations, including the National Federation of Independent Business, the National Association of Wholesale Distributors, the Associated General Contractors, the American Council of Engineering Companies, the Independent Community Bankers of America, the S Corporation Association, and the National Restaurant Association, the letter highlights three key principles to guide tax reform efforts:
- Reform needs to be comprehensive and include both the individual and corporate codes;
- Reform needs to keep the top tax rates for corporations and individuals at similar, low levels; and
- Reform needs to move business taxation away from the destructive double corporate tax, not towards it.
“ If the goal of tax reform is to make domestic businesses more competitive, then tax reform must be comprehensive,” Brian Reardon, Executive Director of the S Corporation Association, observed. “ Fifty-four percent of American workers are employed by businesses that pay taxes at the individual, not corporate, rates. Leaving them behind and pursuing corporate-only reform will make America’s businesses less competitive, not more.”
As the letter concludes, “ By embracing these broad concepts, Congress can move the taxation of business income in a direction that helps ensure that all employers, regardless of how they are organized, continue to invest and create jobs here in America.”