EXCLUSIVE — New polling shows that uncertainty about the fate of the Trump tax cuts and the future of federal tax policy is a major economic cost and could be constraining millions of jobs .
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a nonprofit advocacy group that generally prefers a smaller government and provides research and analysis on tax and spending policy, released the survey Wednesday. It found that about 75% of senior business leaders feel that there is at least some tax policy uncertainty facing their business, with one-third saying the uncertainty is substantive or very high.
Because of uncertainty about what the future of tax policy may hold, businesses might be hesitant to commit to hiring new employees and starting new projects or initiatives.
In turn, the report found that the complete elimination of that tax policy uncertainty would grow U.S. jobs by 2.9%, some 4.7 million jobs, on average in each of the next five years. Even a move from just “some” tax uncertainty to “a little” uncertainty would create an average of 2.6 million jobs.
“These results speak for themselves,” TPA President David Williams said. “Nobody at TPA was surprised by these results and we suspect nobody outside of the organization will be surprised. Businesses around the country need to know the path forward. Tax uncertainty creates risks and harms for businesses and consumers. Uncertainty threatens investment and innovation in the American economy.”
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Most of the current uncertainty comes from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, also known as the Trump tax cuts. Some provisions in the 2017 bill recently expired, and all of the measures relating to the individual side of the code, including the lowered tax rates, the doubled standard deduction, the deduction for small businesses that file through the individual side of the tax code, and many more, are set to lapse next year.
Republicans have vowed to re-up the plan or build on it, but what changes might come hinge largely on the November elections. Republicans or Democrats would have much less leverage to exact sweeping tax policy changes if Congress is divided or the White House is controlled by an opposing party.
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