Tax Policy - The S Corporation Association

Tax Hike Nonsense

The battle over the Budget Resolution is a spending fight, not a tax fight. There is broad agreement over how to extend the expiring individual and pass-through tax policies, whereas there are significant differences when it comes to spending reductions. The problem for Main Street is some members apparently don’t know the difference.

This chart from CBO tells the whole story. Revenues into the federal government are well above historic norms and rising. Spending, meanwhile, is simply out of control. The federal government used to spend one out of every five dollars as recently as 2019 – it is now …

(Read More)

admin2025-04-09T19:27:45+00:00April 9, 2025|

Talking Taxes in a Truck Episode 41: Ryan Ellis on Tariffs, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” SALT, and More

Between tariffs and budget resolutions, it’s been an eventful and busy week here at S-Corp central. To cover it all, we’re joined by three-time podcast guest Ryan Ellis, the President of the Center for a Free Economy and an IRS Enrolled Agent. Ryan gives us his unvarnished take on the tariffs, the Senate budget resolution, baseline budgeting, SALT Parity, Republican tax hikes and more.

This episode of Talking Taxes in a Truck was recorded on April 3, 2025, and runs 33 minutes long.

admin2025-04-03T21:16:55+00:00April 3, 2025|

Clickbait for Tax Hikers

The DC tax community has been buzzing since Axios reported the White House is considering rate hikes to offset their other tax priorities. This from the article:

Some White House officials believe letting income taxes on the very highest earners rise would buy breathing room on other priorities, and help blunt Democrats’ attacks as they seek to extend President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

…Under the budget reconciliation rules that Republicans seek to use to extend the tax cuts, that would free up more revenue that could be used to fulfill some of Trump’s populist promises, such as eliminating taxes on …

(Read More)

admin2025-04-03T15:22:18+00:00April 3, 2025|

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 …

(Read More)

admin2025-01-30T17:32:11+00:00January 30, 2025|

The Winds of Change (and Taxes)

The Senate confirmed Scott Bessent to run the Treasury Department yesterday, which means there’s a new sheriff in town. That’s good news for the millions of Main Street businesses targeted by the Biden Administration for higher taxes and more onerous regulations.

But Main Street didn’t have to wait for Bessent’s confirmation to see how the landscape has changed under Trump. We’ve already seen material differences that promise relief now and in the future.

Example one is their approach to Europe’s Pillar 2 minimum tax campaign. Pillar 2 is a poorly disguised effort by the EU to target large US multinationals …

(Read More)

admin2025-01-28T17:22:04+00:00January 28, 2025|