Republican tax-writers are planning to release more details next month about their proposal to overhaul the tax code, but say they want to get more buy-in from rank-and-file members first.
GOP leaders are reportedly wary of rolling out a tax reform plan in the same manner as the Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Republicans’ health care plan last month lacked enough support from moderate and conservative Republicans to win passage in the Senate.
In July, the so-called Big Six – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and President Trump’s chief economic advisor Gary Cohn – released a short statement broadly stating their commitment to rewriting the tax code this year.
While the Big Six statement was brief, the group has shared few details of what they are working on, except for stating that the controversial border adjustment tax (BAT) that was in House Republicans’ tax blueprint is no longer part of the plan.
“While we have debated the pro-growth benefits of border adjustability, we appreciate that there are many unknowns associated with it and have decided to set this policy aside in order to advance tax reform,” the tax writers said.
There are reports that the Big Six is planning to impose a foreign minimum tax as one means of funding tax reform in lieu of the discarded BAT, which would have taxed imports at 20 percent. Supporters of the BAT estimated the tax could have brought in as much as $1 trillion over the next decade to help offset lower tax rates across the board. Critics of foreign minimum taxes however say it encourages corporate inversions, where a U.S.-based corporation relocates its legal domicile to a lower-tax nation.
Despite a busy September looming when Congress returns from recess, Republican tax writers have been trying to keep tax reform front-and-center in the national conversation, holding an event at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, last week and a number of town halls across the country to talk about the benefits and need for pro-growth tax reform.
“2017 is our year to make history,” Brady said at the ranch last week. “With your help, America, we can close the special-interest loopholes. We can lower tax rates for American families and job creators. We can vault America from nearly dead last among our global competitors back into the lead pack with one of the most pro-growth, pro-jobs tax codes on the planet.”
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