The House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means plans to introduce a legislative tax relief package consisting of three bills that aim to cut taxes for businesses and families and boost economic growth, The Washington Post and Roll Call reported.
The proposed legislation would increase the nation's debt, on the heels of the party criticizing the size of that debt in the run-up to the deal suspending the debt ceiling, according to the Post. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the three bills together would add about $21 billion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
One of the bills in the legislative package would offer relief for research and development (R&D) expenses, likely by allowing companies to deduct their costs immediately, as opposed to amortizing them over five years, Roll Call reported. Before the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), companies were able to deduct these costs immediately.
The legislation would also revoke provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act in intended to battle climate change. It would repeal a tax on petroleum and revoke tax credits designed to increase clean energy production and investment. It would also put limits on tax credits to promote the purchase of electric vehicles and end a tax on toxic chemical dumping sites.
Another provision would restore the original $20,000 threshold for the reporting requirement for businesses using payment cards and third-party payment service apps such as Venmo, CashApp, Etsy, StubHub and Airbnb, repealing a requirement to lower the threshold to $600.
The legislation would also provide a new $4,000 guaranteed deduction bonus for the next two years, on top of the current guaranteed deduction, also known as the standard deduction. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) told Roll Call that this provision, introduced by her and Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.), would lower taxes for 350,000 households in her Staten Island and Brooklyn district.
The legislative package is named the American Families and Jobs Act, and the three bills are the Tax Cuts for Working Families Act (H.R. 3936), the Small Business Jobs Act (H.R. 3937) and the Build It in America Act (H.R. 3938).
“These policies will provide relief for working families, strengthen small businesses, grow jobs, and protect American innovation and competitiveness,” the Committee’s chair, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), said in a statement.
“It’s Republican clockwork. Not even a week after their manufactured default crisis and it is back to tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected. This stoops to a new low even for them: retroactive corporate tax cuts, next-to-nothing for the most vulnerable children and families and sneaking in favors for Big Oil,” the Committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.) said in a statement.