The Senate Republican leadership plan to delay a corporate tax rate cut until 2019 was facing criticism on Thursday from GOP senators who were pushing to find a way to implement it on Jan. 1, 2018, the same date found in the House GOP tax bill.
Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., said some senators are already hoping to find offsets from other parts of the tax bill that would pay for a corporate tax reduction to 20 percent beginning next year rather than in 2019.
“Which what everybody wants to do,” Perdue said.
Republican senators met Thursday to talk in a closed door meeting about the proposed tax plan, which faced immediate criticism for its proposal to slow down the corporate rate cut even before details were formally made public.
Still, Perdue and other senators agreed the bill was a good start, and was something that could be built on.
“I do think they have come up with something balanced, and I do think it’s going to achieve what we want, which is to get the economy growing,” Perdue said.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said the bill “builds upon a good outcome” from the House, which is pitching its own tax plan. The House bill lowers the corporate tax rate to 20 percent beginning in 2018.
“I think it’s more a matter of the math,” Tillis said, explaining the Senate decision to delay the cut. “I’d prefer to do it sooner rather than later, but I think there are other proposed provisions that make me a little more conformable with it.”
Among those provisions is immediate expensing for business assets.
“Immediate expensing is included up front, which is a big deal,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.
The plan leaves the seven current tax brackets in place but lowers rates, including the top rate, which would be 38.5 percent in the Senate bill, not the current 39.6 percent.
The Senate bill leaves in place the current $1 million cap on the deduction for mortgage interest, in contrast to the House bill, which could limit that deduction to $500,000. The Senate bill ends the deduction for state and local taxes.
“There are two or three things in it that I hate, but I think they have done a terrific job of focusing on the single goal of raising family incomes for almost every American,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and some other Republicans wouldn’t declare his support for the bill because the details have not been released in full.
“I have to see the whole thing,” Johnson said.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the plan “needs to make sure we are reducing taxes for hard working Americans,” and that the initial draft, “is a positive step in the right direction.”
Cruz said it could take “several weeks or months” to complete a bill, although the Majority Whip, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said the Senate may consider the bill when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving break.
