On 8/1/17, almost all Senate Democrats plus the two independent senators issued a letter to President Trump, Majority Leader McConnell and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hatch, on their “key principles for tax reform.” The 45 signers indicate they want to work on bipartisan tax reform. The three key principles they “believe are prerequisites to any bipartisan tax reform effort” are:
- Do not increase the tax burden on the middle class and should not benefit the wealthiest individuals.
- The legislation should go through the normal bill approach (60 votes) rather than reconciliation. They do not want to see “partisan short-term tax cuts that would result in economic uncertainty and instability and significantly increase our budget deficit.”
- “Tax reform should be focused on providing a revenue base that meets the needs of our country. Deep cuts to our corporate, individual, and other tax rates are very costly. We will not support any effort to pass deficit-financed tax cuts, which would endanger critical programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other public investments in the future.”
Per the New York Times, absent from the signature list are three senators up for re-election in 2018– Donnelly (IN), Manchin (WV) and Heitkamp (ND) (Alan Rappeport, “After Health Care Victory, Senate Democrats Seek Compromise on Tax Plan,” 8/1/17).
What do you think?
Annette Nellen, CPA, Esq., is a professor in and director of San Jose State University’s graduate tax program (MST), teaching courses in tax research, accounting methods, property transactions, state taxation, employment tax, ethics, tax policy, tax reform, and high technology tax issues.
Annette is the immediate past chair of the AICPA Individual Taxation Technical Resource Panel and a current member of the Executive Committee of the Tax Section of the California Bar. Annette is a regular contributor to the AICPA Tax Insider and Corporate Taxation Insider e-newsletters. She is the author of BNA Portfolio #533, Amortization of Intangibles.
Annette has testified before the House Ways & Means Committee, Senate Finance Committee, California Assembly Revenue & Taxation Committee, and tax reform commissions and committees on various aspects of federal and state tax reform.
Prior to joining SJSU, Annette was with Ernst & Young and the IRS.
1 comment on “Senate Democrats Tax Reform Principles”
I think we have forgotten what is important to all of the people. We vote representatives into congress to work to improve our overall way of life. It is up to the individual if he/she either works hard to make something or not to work and look for charity. Either way it is still our responsibility to try to improve our nation.
Our elected representatives are elected by us in the belief that they will work for our goals because they touched a belief in us to give them our vote. Once elected it appears that the representative has changed their goals.
First how do I get reelected, this is done by fighting to get done the issues I ran on, making friends that will help me keep my job, and finally what is best for the nation only if it doesn’t conflict with what my voting base needs.
My belief is that these representatives should do for the nation first and work into what their voters want next. Will this ensure there continuing employment as a representative who knows.
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