How a root canal tax reform would look

The next president and Congress will have a major opportunity to restructure the United States’s federal tax code. At the end of 2025, most of the tax provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act pertaining to individuals expire.

By contrast, most of the corporate tax cuts of the 2017 TCJA are permanent. If no action is taken, federal taxes will increase in most households. That means there is a strong incentive to do something bold. We could restructure the tax code to promote strong economic growth and dramatically reduce the federal deficit. With that in mind, a few basic principles should guide the next Congress in fundamentally reforming the tax code.