Tax Talk Top 10

Senate Finance Committee’s Fact Sheets Highlight the Need for Tax Reform

The time to reform the broken tax code is now. A pro-growth tax plan will move the U.S. economy forward, helping to produce jobs and bigger paychecks for the American people, and allowing them to keep more of their hard-earned incomes.

Congress and the administration are working to unite behind a plan that will provide responsible tax relief for the middle class, bring down tax rates across the board, and enhance America’s competitiveness around the globe.

Here’s the Senate Finance Committee’s top 10 fact sheets on the need for comprehensive tax reform:

1. Time to Reform the Broken Tax Code

   The bloated U.S. tax code is a tangled web of legislative provisions, regulations, and rulings that confuses American taxpayers, impedes economic efficiency, treats similarly-situated taxpayers differently, and stifles the competitiveness of American businesses. 

2. Committed to Pro-Growth Tax Reform

   More than 70,000 pages in length, the current tax code is a labyrinth of red tape that stifles growth, prevents job creation, and makes it harder for middle-class American families to make ends meet.

3. America's Crippling Corporate Tax Rate
   When faced with the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world, American businesses are at a competitive disadvantage relative to businesses located in other countries.

4. What’s A Territorial Tax System?
   In recent years, there has been an uptick in U.S. inversions and foreign takeovers of U.S. companies, which has seriously eroded our nation’s tax base. While lowering the U.S. corporate tax rate from one of the highest in the world to one of the lowest will help ease these challenges and make American businesses more competitive, reforms to the structure of our the international tax system are another essential part of the equation.

5. The $2+ Trillion Lockout
   Because of the United States’ antiquated and anti-competitive tax code, a massive amount of capital — likely exceeding $2.6 trillion — is locked outside the country and unavailable for investment in America. This means fewer financial resources for American jobs, American wages, and American job creators here at home.

6. Pro-Growth, Pro-Middle Class Tax Reform
   As the tax-writing committees in both the Senate and the House work to advance current tax reform efforts in Congress, thought leaders, stakeholders, and tax experts across the country welcomed Washington’s commitment to remaking the tax code and highlighted the economic benefits this effort will bring.

7. Time to Simplify
   With congressional tax reform efforts moving forward, lawmakers and administration officials agree: it’s time to simplify the overly complex and burdensome U.S. Tax Code.

8. A Tax Code to Help American Small Businesses Compete
   It is important to ensure that one of the nation’s greatest economic drivers – American small businesses – have access to more resources to help them grow, invest, and hire new workers. 

9. Middle-Class Relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax
   The AMT, which has been tweaked nearly 20 times since its inception, is out-of-date, complicated and confusing. As current tax reform efforts proceed, Washington will take a close look at getting rid of this arcane tax once and for all. 

10. Explaining the Estate Tax
    Over the last two decades, estate and gift tax laws have been in flux – making financial planning difficult for hardworking families, small business owners and farmers. On top of that, since 2012, the maximum estate and gift tax rates have been set at a whopping 40 percent.

For more information, visit the Senate Finance Committee’s website at finance.senate.gov/taxreform.

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