House of Representatives Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told Texas Politics's Javier Manjarres that Republicans intend to enshrine President Donald Trump’s tax cuts into law.
President Trump passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), a major tax reform law, in 2017.
The TCJA mainly reduces personal income and corporate taxes among other regulatory tax reforms.
“We’re going to be locking in as many (tax cuts) as we can permanently,” Representative Scalise said.
Republicans have hailed the cuts, which lowered the corporate tax rate to 21%, as beneficial for small businesses and as inciting economic growth.
A new study conducted on behalf of the National Federation of Independent Business found Representative Scalise’s initiative to make the TCJA permanent would create 1 million jobs annually.
One of the TCJA’s benefits is a 20% deduction of qualified income for pass-through businesses, a legal structure possessed by many small businesses use.
Pass-through businesses are not legally formed as limited liability corporations and report their earnings on the owners’ individual income tax returns.
Thus, the TCJA grants pass-through business owners a 20% reduction in their taxable income.
However, the TCJA will expire soon without legislative action, prompting Republicans to act quickly to enshrine it.
Scalise also pledged to memorialize Trump’s campaign promise of exempting tips from taxable income.
“Trump wants to go further, he talked about no tax on tips, we’re going to do that,” assured Scalise.
Just about every single Republican member of Congress supports retaining, extending, and increasing the existing tax cuts, including Texas Rep. Morgan Luttrell.
“I know the American public would love that,”said Rep. Luttrell.
“The existing tax cuts are great,” he expressed, adding that “if the Republican Party can come to some sort of consensus on ‘hey, let’s go long on this,’ then we have to get the Senate to back it up.”
Republicans have already begun moving the ball on the issue in the upper chamber of Congress, as Senators Rick Scott (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) filed the No Tax on Tips Act earlier this month.
“President Trump is laser-focused on getting our economy back on track, and passing this bill ASAP will be a great start,” said Senator Scott.
