Buried within more than 2,300 pages of legislation authorizing more than $1.4 trillion in spending is a collection of special interest tax incentives dumped into two crucial budget bills at the last minute-including tax breaks for racehorses, breweries, and biofuels.
Both interests had seen special tax breaks expire in 2017, but will now get retroactive tax breaks to cover the past two years and further tax breaks through 2022, according to The Wall Street Journal.
All told, there are more than two dozen industry-specific tax incentives included in the budget bills, Bloomberg reports.
The Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional number-crunching service, estimates that the temporary and extended tax breaks included in the budget bills will cost about $54 billion over 10 years.
On their own, many of the small tax breaks included in the budget bills might be defensible.
If Congress believes there is a good reason to continue giving specific tax breaks to distilleries or the horse-racing industry, then it should act to make those tax breaks permanent.
One of the arguments Republicans used to justify cutting the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 21 percent in 2017 was that it would eliminate the need for so many industry-specific tax breaks.
https://reason.com/2019/12/18/bipartisan-bucket-of-garbage-budget-bill-contains-50-billion-in-special-interest-tax-breaks/
Both interests had seen special tax breaks expire in 2017, but will now get retroactive tax breaks to cover the past two years and further tax breaks through 2022, according to The Wall Street Journal.
All told, there are more than two dozen industry-specific tax incentives included in the budget bills, Bloomberg reports.
The Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional number-crunching service, estimates that the temporary and extended tax breaks included in the budget bills will cost about $54 billion over 10 years.
On their own, many of the small tax breaks included in the budget bills might be defensible.
If Congress believes there is a good reason to continue giving specific tax breaks to distilleries or the horse-racing industry, then it should act to make those tax breaks permanent.
One of the arguments Republicans used to justify cutting the corporate income tax from 35 percent to 21 percent in 2017 was that it would eliminate the need for so many industry-specific tax breaks.
https://reason.com/2019/12/18/bipartisan-bucket-of-garbage-budget-bill-contains-50-billion-in-special-interest-tax-breaks/
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