Last month, over 100 trade associations voiced their strong opposition to changes to the Section 199A pass-through deduction. Their message was clear: now, more than ever, businesses across the country are relying on Section 199A to stay afloat.

Despite this broad opposition, Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden today announced that he was pressing ahead with a bill to phase out the deduction for taxpayers with incomes over $400,000, while eliminating it altogether for those with incomes exceeding $500,000.

Section 199A offers business owners a 20-percent deduction on their qualified business income, but the benefit is phased out for “specified service” trade …

(Read More)

Last week’s on, off, and on-again bipartisan deal was confusing, but it did make clear President Biden’s intention to advance a more expansive partisan package regardless of the bipartisan bill’s fate.

Work on that expanded package has already begun. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer kicked off the budget reconciliation process earlier in the month, and Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders is now in the process of putting together a spending framework, reportedly in the $6 trillion range, with $3 trillion in offsets.

With moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin, Jon Tester and others voicing concern over the size of …

(Read More)

More than 100 trade associations today voiced their opposition to proposed legislation which would weaken the Section 199A pass-through deduction.

The provision is an essential part of the Tax Code, and helps individually- and family-owned Main Street businesses remain competitive in an era of economic consolidation and concentration. Section 199A has also proven critical in enabling those businesses which were hardest hit during the pandemic to survive.

As the letter released today makes clear, rolling back or otherwise limiting the deduction would have a severely detrimental effect on the 95 percent of American businesses organized as pass-throughs.

Below is the comprehensive …

(Read More)

At a hearing last week, Finance Chair Ron Wyden stated:

More than two out of every three dollars earned by partnerships in this country go to the top one percent of earners. These are sophisticated entities that bring in big revenue. However, the most recent data shows that out of millions of partnership returns filed in 2018, only 140 were audited. If you’re a wealthy tax cheat in a partnership, your odds of getting audited are slightly higher than your odds of getting hit by a meteorite. It’s an audit rate of 0.00004 percent. On the other hand, …

(Read More)

Earlier this week, S-Corp President Brian Reardon hosted a webinar for its membership to highlight the threat President Biden’s American Families Plan poses to individually and family-owned businesses.

The presentation focused on the “Triple Threat” pass-throughs face from the plan — it would raise taxes on their operations, their sale, and when they are passed on to the next generation.  This combination of tax hikes threatens their very ability to exist.

The webinar also addressed the faulty assumptions underpinning the Biden tax plan, including the fictions that the tax code has become less progressive …

(Read More)