Removing tax policy barriers can help businesses and individuals invest, work, create jobs, and lift the economy during a post-pandemic recovery without requiring lawmakers to create new spending programs. One of the most cost-efficient options available to lawmakers is to make permanent and expand the full expensing of capital investment.
While tax rates matter to businesses, so too does the measure of income to which those tax rates apply. Depreciation understates investment costs, overstates business profits, and reduces the after-tax return on the investment—resulting in less capital formation, productivity growth, and economic output. In other words, depreciation requires businesses to pay tax on income that doesn’t exist.
Removing the tax code’s bias against long-term investment by implementing a neutral cost recovery system (NCRS) for structures and full expensing for other assets is estimated to increase economic growth and job creation. Using the Tax Foundation General Equilibrium Model, we estimate that permanent full expensing and neutral cost recovery for structures will add more than 1 million full-time equivalent jobs to the long-run economy and boost the long-run capital stock by 13 percent, or $4.8 trillion.
Policymakers actively marginalized the manufacturing sector by saddling them with cost recovery rules that prevent them from deducting the full cost of investment in physical plant and equipment. Going forward, policymakers should avoid haphazard fixes, targeted measures, and protectionism.
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We estimate that moving to permanent full expensing and neutral cost recovery for structures would add more than 1 million full-time equivalent jobs to the long-run economy and boost the long-run capital stock by $4.8 trillion.
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Cost recovery is the way the tax code permits firms to recover (or deduct) the cost of making investments. Cost recovery plays an important role in defining a business’ taxable income and can impact investment decisions.
Studies have shown that accelerated depreciation helps increase wage growth. A recent report found that states that implemented accelerated depreciation in their tax codes led to a 2.5 percent increase in compensation per employee in manufacturing, relative to states that did not.
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While tax rates matter to businesses, so too does the measure of income to which those tax rates apply. The corporate income tax is a tax on profits, normally defined as revenue minus costs. However, under the current tax code, businesses are unable to deduct the full cost of certain expenses—their capital investments—meaning the tax code is not neutral and actually increases the cost of investment.
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Permanent full expensing for all types of investment is an effective policy change lawmakers can use to encourage additional investment and economic growth.
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We estimate that moving to permanent full expensing and neutral cost recovery for structures would add more than 1 million full-time equivalent jobs to the long-run economy and boost the long-run capital stock by $4.8 trillion.
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By updating the tax code to allow developers to more fully cover their investments, construction costs will fall, which, in turn, means that federal affordable housing assistance dollars will go that much further in helping low-income tenants.
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Studies have shown that accelerated depreciation helps increase wage growth. A recent report found that states that implemented accelerated depreciation in their tax codes led to a 2.5 percent increase in compensation per employee in manufacturing, relative to states that did not.
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In the first year of enactment alone, we estimate the combination of full expensing and neutral cost recovery would increase full-time equivalent employment by more than 44,000 jobs. The cumulative impact by year five of the policy would be nearly 200,000 new jobs.
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A neutral cost recovery system lowers the short-term cost of the policy to the federal government while providing nearly equivalent economic benefits. While neutral cost recovery is not a new idea, there are several policy questions lawmakers will want to consider when designing this system.
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The lockdowns imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic induced an increase in demand for broadband internet, as work from home and other social distancing measures pushed people to spend more time online. As broadband becomes a more important piece of America’s infrastructure, it makes sense to look at tax policy that will help drive more investment and better service.
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One idea that would help the nation’s economic recovery during the coronavirus crisis would be moving to full expensing of capital investment. The depreciation debate might seem confusing, so the question at hand is: how, when, and by what amount can businesses recognize (or recover) the cost of a capital investment, like a piece of equipment or a new warehouse, on their income tax return?
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As stated by Rep. Jack Kemp in 1985, “Neutral cost recovery is designed to provide the present value of investment expensing without some of its practical problems.”
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The Tax Foundation’s General Equilibrium Model suggests that allowing businesses to immediately deduct or “expense” their capital investments in the year in which they are purchased delivers the biggest bang for the buck in spurring economic growth and jobs compared to other tax policies.
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Improving the tax treatment of structures is one of the most cost-effective tax policy changes available to lawmakers as they consider how to remove investment barriers in the tax code to hasten the economic recovery. Policymakers must weigh the trade-offs among long-run economic output goals, revenue constraints, and the existing stock of structures.
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Other countries have shown that providing deductions in line with invested capital costs can have positive impacts both on investment and on debt bias.
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When considering long-term policies for increasing long-run levels of investment and economic growth, full expensing and neutral cost recovery are better targeted than policies like a capital gains cut.
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Permanent full expensing for all types of investment is an effective policy change lawmakers can use to encourage additional investment and economic growth.
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One of the most cost-effective policy changes would be to make full expensing of machinery and equipment permanent and extend this important tax treatment to structures as well as for firms in a net operating loss position.
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Governments at all levels must work to remove the tax policy barriers that stand in the way of economic recovery and long-term prosperity following the COVID-19 crisis. Our new guide outlines several comprehensive options that policymakers can take at the federal and state levels.
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Identify some of the most common tax myths and tax policy misconceptions and learn how to separate fact from fiction. Discover why tax refunds shouldn’t be celebrated, why you should pay your income tax bill, and why certain deductions are wrongly labeled “loopholes,” among other useful facts. Improve your ability to counter misleading arguments about the tax code.
Although sometimes overlooked in discussions about corporate taxation, capital cost recovery plays an important role in defining a business’s tax base and can impact investment decisions—with far-reaching economic consequences.
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Making 100 percent bonus depreciation permanent avoids the uncertainty associated with the phaseout of a powerful pro-growth policy and would provide a cost-effective boost to long-run economic output, wages, and employment in the United States.
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Full expensing, if made permanent, would be one of the most cost-effective ways to increase growth as it would produce about 4.5 times more GDP growth per dollar of revenue than making the law’s individual tax provisions permanent, according to our analysis.
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