In Washington, passing major tax legislation is hard. Convincing Americans they actually benefited from it is often even harder.
That’s the central argument David Winston – founder of the polling and research firm The Winston Group and a longtime S-Corp ally – makes in a recent Roll Call op-ed, and it rings especially true for Main Street employers. Despite the significance of the One Big Beautiful Bill (now being referred to as the “Working Families Tax Cut”), public perception hasn’t quite caught up to reality. As David notes, tax cuts don’t often get the credit they deserve, and people may notice their tax bills have shrunk, but they rarely attribute that to congressional action:
These across-the-board tax cuts were going to expire at the end of this year, and if that had happened, most people in the country would have seen their taxes go up. Yet sadly, a kind of cynicism has settled over many voters who remain unconvinced of almost anything they hear from politicians and the media these days.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. Following the 2017 tax reform bill, the data clearly showed that most taxpayers received tax relief, but research by The Winston Group showed only about a third of Americans believed they had. And that was despite clear, measurable savings. Likewise, our EY study found that tax relief for pass-through businesses (particularly 199A) translates into higher wages, more jobs, and increased investment. In short, the policies worked, but the politics and messaging lagged.
The same dynamic is at play today. The Working Families Tax Cut delivers the most significant set of Main Street-focused tax reforms in over a decade. Permanent extension of Section 199A (which directly supports 2.6 million American jobs), higher estate tax exemptions (critical to ensuring future generations doesn’t have to buy the whole business back from the government), R&E expensing (which prevents massive, unexpected tax bills), and other pro-growth policies all go straight to the heart of how family-owned companies grow and transition. These provisions also help ensure parity between pass-throughs and their publicly-owned corporate competitors, which pay far lower rates, and ultimately drive down costs for consumers. Yet, as David points out, voters’ default assumption is that their taxes are going up, not down.
That creates a messaging gap and a political risk. If people don’t know they got a tax cut, they won’t reward the policymakers who made it happen. Worse, they may be swayed by opponents who characterize the reforms as giveaways to someone else. This is exactly what happened post-2017 — despite widespread tax relief, the reforms never enjoyed majority public support.
The solution, as David argues, is sustained follow-through. That means telling the stories of Main Street businesses that are using the tax relief to hire more workers, reinvest in plant and equipment, and continuing their community support. Those are the stories S-Corp and its Main Street allies will be telling in the months and years ahead, and we encourage the rest of the business community to do the same.
In the end, the success of the reconciliation package will hinge on whether Americans fully understand how it benefits them.