Senate Republican Coronavirus Package Is Undermined by Complexity & Impermanence
What does the Senate Republican coronavirus package do? Are there better ways of providing short-run relief without making the tax code more complicated?


What does the Senate Republican coronavirus package do? Are there better ways of providing short-run relief without making the tax code more complicated?


The coronavirus relief package represents the second-largest recovery legislation, behind only the CARES Act, for a combined total of more than $3 trillion in support.


We ought to be worried about the impact of corporate taxes on women, low-skilled workers, and younger workers, since they are the very workers who have been most impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. Raising the corporate tax rate would simply hurt them even more.


No other country has tried to enforce some of the policies that the Biden administration is proposing. Embarking on such uncharted course would set the U.S. apart from global tax policy norms and best practices and could harm American competitiveness.


The top federal rate on capital gains would be 43.4 percent under Biden’s tax plan (when including the net investment income tax). Rates would be even higher in many U.S. states due to state and local capital gains taxes, leading to a combined average rate of over 48 percent compared to about 29 percent under current law.


President Biden’s choice to fund new spending programs with increased corporate taxes comes with trade-offs for American output and incomes.


Economic research and Tax Foundation modeling indicate there is a negative trade-off between progressive taxes on capital income—such as the wealth tax, minimum book tax on corporate income, and a higher corporate tax rate—and economic growth.


While falling short of comprehensively reforming the complex U.S. retirement savings system, House and Senate lawmakers have proposed bipartisan bills to help simplify and expand access to retirement savings accounts to more workers.


As lawmakers explore funding mechanisms for additional federal infrastructure investment, they should focus on permanent, sustainable, and transparent revenue options that conform to the benefit principle. Permanent user fees, appropriately adjusted to restore and maintain their purchasing power, would serve as ideal revenue sources for federal infrastructure investments.


The proposed restructuring of the GILTI and FDII regimes makes several changes to the tax base that are largely offsetting, leaving virtually all the revenue potential to be determined by the tax rates on GILTI and FDII and the haircuts on foreign tax credits. Lawmakers should carefully weigh the trade-offs between higher tax revenues and competitiveness.