WASHINGTON – Congressman Vern Buchanan announced today that he has introduced the TCJA Permanency Act (H.R.8913), legislation to make permanent tax cuts for individuals and small businesses originally enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. Buchanan worked closely with the Ways and Means Committee Republican staff to introduce the signature tax cut legislation that top committee Republican Leader Kevin Brady says will “lock in low taxes for families and small businesses struggling with record inflation.”
Without Congressional action, 23 different provisions of the 2017 Republican tax law are set to expire after 2025.
“In 2017, Republicans delivered the most comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. tax code in more than three decades and achieved historic economic growth,” said Buchanan, second in seniority on the Ways and Means Committee. “Under the leadership of Leader Brady, we delivered historic tax relief to low and middle-income families and small businesses across all income levels. With Americans continuing to suffer under the weight of record-high inflation and an uncertain economic future, we need to provide some much-needed relief and certainty to hardworking families and ensure these tax cuts do not expire.”
Buchanan is joined by Leader Brady; Congressman Jim Banks, chairman of the Republican Study Committee; Congressman Scott Perry, chairman of the House Freedom Caucus; and Congressman David Joyce, chairman of the Republican Governance Group as original cosponsors.
Previously serving as chairman of the Ways and Means Tax Policy Subcommittee, Buchanan helped oversee the successful and smooth implementation of TCJA. During the 2017 tax reform debate, he focused on lowering tax rates for individuals and small businesses and on simplifying the tax code.
According to the Tax Foundation, “most taxpayers will see a tax hike unless some or all provisions are extended.”
Key Components of Buchanan’s Bill:
- Permanently lowers tax rates for individuals and families, allowing Americans at every income level to keep more of their hard-earned money
- Preserves the 20 percent deduction for small businesses, ensuring taxes won’t go up on Main Street businesses, which employ nearly half of the U.S. workforce
- Maintains the higher standard deduction, increasing the amount of tax-free income a middle-class family can earn
- Locks in the doubled child tax credit, further encouraging workforce participation
- Permanently simplifies the tax filing process, allowing 9 out of 10 Americans to get the full benefit of tax deductions without the headache of tracking receipts or itemizing
Buchanan’s legislation also includes a number of important updates to a previous iteration of this bill, including several technical fixes and expanded eligible uses of 529 savings plans to help parents and students.
Leader Kevin Brady said, “Unlike the cruel economy of President Biden, under the modernized Republican tax code of 2017 America’s economy was growing, paychecks were rising twice as fast as inflation, jobs were coming back from overseas, millions of Americans were lifted out of poverty and communities enjoyed record business investment here in America. Making the historic Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent will lock in low taxes for families and small businesses struggling with record inflation, and create certainty for the pro-growth provisions that leapfrogged America to the most competitive economy in the world.”
TCJA reduced taxes on middle-class families and small businesses across the country and created nearly 5 million jobs in the two years following its passage. It also delivered the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years (3.5 percent), all-time low unemployment for African American and Hispanic workers and the fastest wage growth in a decade.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also found that TCJA reduced federal tax rates for families across every income level while actually increasing the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of American households.
According to the Tax Foundation, making TCJA’s individual tax provisions permanent will lead to 2.2 percent higher GDP in the long-term.
“The results of TCJA were nothing short of stunning, but not surprising,” said Buchanan. “As someone who spent 30 years doing business, I know from experience that making our tax code more competitive means greater prosperity for small businesses and families.”
As noted by the former president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), "[Buchanan’s] sponsorship of the Main Street Fairness Act established the principle that tax reform should start with small business. That principal became one of the pillars of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act."
Buchanan has led five of the six Ways and Means Subcommittees and currently sits on the Joint Committee on Taxation, a small group of the most senior tax-writers in Congress.
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