Explore the latest tax proposals by U.S. Senate Committee on Finance Chairman Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). See our research and analysis of the various Wyden tax proposals below.
In response to high oil prices, Sen. Wyden has proposed raising taxes on oil and gas companies in three ways. His “Taxing Big Oil Profiteers Act” would create an additional 21 percent tax on so-called excess profits earned over 10 percent of revenues of oil companies with annual revenues over $1 billion; levy a tax on stock buybacks; and remove last-in, first-out (LIFO) tax treatment of inventory accounting.
In general, the effective tax rates on the foreign profits of U.S. multinationals are not that low relative to the U.S. tax rate, contrary to popular rhetoric.
A carbon tax would be a less economically harmful pay-for than either personal or corporate income tax hikes and a more efficient way to reduce carbon emissions than green energy tax credits, but would come with other trade-offs.
Research shows that a tax on stock buybacks would not be the right policy solution to encourage long-term investment or lift wages.
Congressional lawmakers are putting together a reconciliation bill to enact much of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Many lawmakers including Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR), however, want to make their own mark on the legislation.
Mark-to-market is not simple to implement, as it involves new administrative and compliance challenges for taxpayers. Mark-to-market levies tax on phantom income, requiring some taxpayers to engage in some degree of liquidation, ultimately suppressing incentives to save and invest. The limited tax revenues that could result from these proposals are not worth the risk.
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.
To tackle problems of homelessness and housing costs, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has released a major tax proposal, the Decent Affordable Safe Housing (DASH) For All Act. Several of Wyden’s proposals are also components of the Biden administration’s infrastructure agenda, with a large focus on tax credits designed to either incentivize new housing or directly reduce rent burdens.
While arcane, expense allocation rules are relevant to current debates because they result in a heavier tax burden for U.S. companies under current law than the recently negotiated global minimum tax proposal.
Sen. Wyden recently introduced the Small Business Tax Fairness Act—the impact of which we modeled—to reform the Section 199A pass-through business deduction created in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. The provision currently allows taxpayers to deduct up to 20 percent of their qualified business income from their taxable income, subject to certain limitations.