The G.O.P. Tax Bill Is Unworkable [View all]

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https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-gop-tax-bill-is-unworkable

The G.O.P. Tax Bill Is Unworkable
By John Cassidy
December 18, 2017


With the House of Representatives set to pass the final version of the Republican tax bill on Tuesday, and a vote in the Senate expected later in the week, here is a prediction: no matter which party controls Congress after next year’s midterms, lawmakers will eventually be forced to revise this tax bill substantially. This legislation simply isn’t workable in the long run. Unless it is fixed, it could end up crippling the tax system.

At this stage, the unfairness and ideological bent of the proposal are widely recognized, as is its corrupt nature. Giveaways to the wealthy and large corporations have been at the heart of the bill all along, while last-minute changes made to the final bill, unveiled on Friday, included goodies for a number of groups, including architects, engineers, and the owners of a particular sort of commercial real-estate entity—the kind that Donald Trump, Senator Bob Corker, and certain other members of Congress just so happen to own. (On Monday afternoon, Senator Orrin Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, admitted that he was responsible for inserting the offending provision. The real-estate industry has long been a big donor to his campaigns.)

What isn’t yet fully appreciated is how porous and potentially unstable the rest of the tax code will be after the bill is passed. With a corporate rate of just twenty per cent, and a big new break for proprietors of unincorporated businesses and certain types of partnerships, the new code will contain enormous incentives for tax-driven restructurings, creative accounting, and outright fraud. Every tax adviser and scammer in the country will be looking for ways to reclassify regular salary income as favored types of business income.

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Perhaps that is what Republicans want to happen. Undoubtedly, there are some in the Party who would like to see the tax base decimated, the I.R.S. crippled, and the federal government forced to slash spending on domestic programs, particularly entitlement programs. But, for anybody who believes in a properly functioning government, a rational, clearly defined tax system is essential. The Republican reform doesn’t meet that standard. In the words of the report, the “haphazard lines” that the legislation creates are “fundamentally unfair and inefficient,” and, taken as a whole, it represents “a substantial blow to the basic integrity of the income tax.” It won’t survive in its current form.