Home/The Washington Wire

M2M Returns, Departs

Like a vampire, the Wyden “mark-to-market” (or M2M) proposal rose from the dead over the weekend in what appeared to be a Hail Mary effort to replace large portions of the House tax hike plan at the last minute. Those parts were objected to by Senator Sinema, leaving negotiators with a large hole both in their revenue and their rhetoric.  Enter M2M.  Then Senator Manchin and Chairman Neal spoke up in opposition to the idea.  Exit M2M.

Before we get to the outlook, it’s important to focus first on just how bad an idea M2M is.  As we

(Read More)

2021-10-27T20:42:36+00:00October 27, 2021|

S-Corp Opposes Grantor Trust Changes

The proposed changes to grantor trusts included in the Build Back Better Act (H.R. 5376) are a serious threat to Main Street employers nationwide. The authors claim these changes would ensure billionaires “pay their fair share,” but in reality they would fall most heavily on family-owned businesses, making it all but impossible for some of them to survive from one generation to the next.

To highlight this threat, S-Corp sent a letter today to the House’s top tax writers detailing the history of grantor trusts, the flaws in the proposals in H.R. 5376, and the harm they would inflict on

(Read More)

2021-10-21T22:00:48+00:00October 21, 2021|

Analysis Shows 199A is Essential for Parity

Ken Kies is a former head of Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation and one of Washington’s most respected tax experts. Today he has a succinct and highly persuasive defense of the Section 199A deduction that’s worth the attention of tax writers.

In a letter published in Tax Notes, Kies makes clear that C corporations are already tax advantaged when compared to pass-through businesses, and that paring back 199A would only make the imbalance worse:

Current law should be retained in its entirety. Taking into account all the proposed changes in the pending legislation, passthrough businesses would wind up being taxed more

(Read More)

2021-10-12T10:56:20+00:00October 12, 2021|

Talking Taxes in a Truck Episode 15: “A Lump of Coal in Our Stockings”

Kevin Kuhlman, a Vice President of Federal Relations at NFIB, walks through the results of the organization’s latest research, and details the extent to which Main Street businesses have been kneecapped by severe revenue losses, labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, and rising prices over the past 18 months. Add in the harm these businesses will suffer under the House tax hike bill and what the new Senate debt limit deal means for the timing of any potential tax hikes, and this is a “must listen” edition of the Talking Taxes in a Truck podcast.

This episode of Talking Taxes in a

(Read More)

2021-10-08T15:05:40+00:00October 8, 2021|

Where the Jobs Are

The House tax package would hit private companies twice as hard as public C corporations.  It would impose marginal rates of 46.4 percent or more on private companies, while taxing public corporations as little as 26.5 percent.  No business structure can survive such an imbalance, so the net effect would be to encourage further economic consolidation away from Main Street and towards Wall Street.

Why should policy makers care?  Because private companies are where the jobs are.

A new study from EY demonstrates that private companies supply the vast majority of jobs nationally – 77 percent of them.  Public companies supply

(Read More)

2021-09-29T14:27:06+00:00September 29, 2021|