Home/199A TCJA

The Experts are Wrong (Part V)

Several months ago, we asked Penn Wharton to help us score some ideas on tax reform.  They politely declined.  Too busy analyzing the 199A deduction, apparently. Their new paper on the deduction makes two points — the first is wrong and the second, while interesting, is not particularly helpful.

Their first point is that “Section 199A provides a 20 percent reduction in the tax rate for qualified business income relative to ordinary income tax rates.” That’s wrong. The Section 199A deduction reduces a pass-through’s Qualified Business Income, not the tax rate. The deduction makes no claims on tax rates.

This mischaracterization

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2025-01-30T17:32:11+00:00January 30, 2025|

Main Street Tax Certainty in the House (and Senate)

Earlier today Senator Steve Daines and Congressman Lloyd Smucker reintroduced their Main Street Tax Certainty Act, legislation to make permanent the Section 199A deduction. The bills mirror S. 1706 and H.R.  4706 from last Congress, meaning the campaign to protect Main Street from looming tax hikes is once again a bicameral and bipartisan effort.

The legislation introduced today builds on our prior success in a big way. Whereas the previous House bill garnered support from 91 original cosponsors – a significant feat in and of itself – Congressman Smucker’s bill was released today with the backing of 151 original cosponsors. It’s

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2025-01-23T22:47:21+00:00January 23, 2025|

Main Street Rallies Around 199A Permanence

More than 230 trade associations came out in support today of legislation to make permanent the Section 199A deduction. Appropriately named the Main Street Tax Certainty Act, the bill is set to be reintroduced tomorrow by Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) and Representative Lloyd Smucker (R-PA), two of the Main Street business community’s staunchest allies.

The deduction was enacted in 2017 to encourage job creation and new investment by private businesses.  It also helps private companies compete with public corporations. Without the deduction, pass-throughs would face rates up to 16 percentage points higher than their publicly-traded competitors. The challenge is

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2025-01-22T16:48:04+00:00January 22, 2025|

199A Permanence Dominates Tax Hearing

The House Ways & Means Committee today kicked off the new Congress with a hearing focused on the family and business provisions included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But the topic that took center stage is one that’s near and dear to the hearts of millions of Main Street businesses nationwide – addressing the looming expiration of the Section 199A deduction.

The panel first heard testimony from Michelle Gallagher, an S-Corp Advisor and accountant with decades of experience serving individual and family-owned businesses (and who can be seen sporting our “I Love 199A pin!”).



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2025-01-14T21:33:21+00:00January 14, 2025|

Main Street 199A Resources

In the past, we’ve posted all the studies, data, and other information we’d compiled in support of the 199A deduction (here and here).

With Congress debating the deduction once more – Ways and Means hearing tomorrow! – we thought this would be a good time to repost all this work.  It demonstrates both the importance of the pass-through sector to the economy and the importance of Section 199A to the pass-through sector.

The Importance of 199A

Our recent study by EY’s Robert Carroll demonstrates how the 199A deduction is vital to Main Street parity. The key takeaway is summed

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2025-01-13T20:59:27+00:00January 13, 2025|