The GOP tax cut bill would make corporate tax cuts permanent while allowing modest tax breaks for families to expire after a few years, but it's possible the latter will have an even shorter life-span.
Eliminating the alternative minimum tax (AMT) on corporations and adding a new tax cut for the rich has pushed the bill beyond the $1.5 trillion reconciliation threshold and GOP leaders are looking for more revenue.
Under a tax overhaul bill passed by the Senate earlier this month, tax cuts for all American households would expire at the end of 2025. But Republicans are now considering having those tax cuts expire in 2024.
“That’s one of the things we’re looking at,” Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) said Thursday when asked about shortening the duration.
“They’re looking at every possible thing they can to meet the revenue needs, as always at the end of the thing we’re looking at everything,” he said.
This is all being done in service of cutting corporate taxes to 20 or 21 percent at a cost of approximately $100 billion per point.
Republicans could balance their equations by simply cutting corporate taxes by a less ridiculous amount, but they aren't going to do that because tax cuts for working families is not their priority. That should have been obvious when we learned that the corporate tax cuts will be permanent but the others will not be.