Confused about the two tax cut bills?

art credit: economiapersonal.com.ar

Joseph Smith at the American Thinker blog helps to sort it out, and he includes links to Forbes:

. . . With the House bill weighing in at 429 pages and filled with many arcane tax reform provisions, perhaps the best summary comparison of the House and Senate bills is found at forbes.com, page 1 and page 2.

Among the major issues to be reconciled between the two versions are:

·         The repeal of the Obamacare mandate is in the Senate bill only and should be included in the reconciled bill.

·         The new tax provisions for individuals are permanent in the House bill but expire after 2025 in the Senate bill to meet budget reconciliation rules.

·         The mortgage interest deduction is different in the two versions, with the home-building industry expected to push for the higher deduction in the senate bill

·         The tax treatment of pass-through business income, a major issue for Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and others, differs in the two bills.

·         The corporate tax rate is cut from the current 35 percent to 20 percent beginning in 2018 in the House bill but is delayed until 2019 in the Senate bill.  Why would the Republicans have their biggest economy-booster kick in after the 2018 elections?  

·         While both versions contain a property tax deduction up to $10,000, the state and local income tax deduction has been eliminated from both bills.  Expect blue state House members to seek further compromise on that issue in the conference committee.

The two tax bills, which no Democrats have supported, must now be reconciled in a House-Senate conference committee, with the compromise bill to be voted on again in each body before being sent to the president for signing into law.

With deregulation and a resurgent economy paving the way for tax cuts, the Trump economic train is leaving the station without the Democrats.

Read the rest here.

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