House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady delivered a speech on the anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reform to remind Americans how an aggressive overhaul of the tax code can benefit the economy.
On Wednesday’s anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s historic tax relief legislation, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady announced in a speech that an overhaul of the federal tax system would be passed this year.
From Reagan’s Santa Barbara, California ranch, Brady reflected on how the nation’s tax code has fared since the former president’s ambitious reform. “As we stand here 31 years later, we face a monumental challenge of our own—coming together to fix a U.S. tax code that has become just as broken as the one President Reagan and Congress overhauled in the 1980s,” said Brady.
JOIN NFIB AND TELL CONGRESS TAX REFORM STARTS WITH SMALL BUSINESS
President Ronald Reagan lowered personal income tax rates by 25 percent and championed other pro-business reforms, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Today’s tax code has tripled in length since the 1986 tax reform,” said Brady. “It’s once again full of unfair carve-outs and loopholes.”
Brady promised a bipartisan effort to overhaul the tax code and to return jobs from overseas. “For the first time in over three decades we have a President, a House, and a Senate who are all committed to overhauling this broken tax code and unleashing the growth of jobs and paychecks nationwide,” said Brady. “And whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, if you’re serious about getting real pro-growth tax reform done for the American people this year, we are serious about working with you.”
Although Brady’s speech instilled confidence that the tax system will be reformed this year, Brady did not provide specifics on what the legislation will look like. For tax reform to benefit small business, NFIB proposes that reform should ensure that no small business pays more than large corporations, cut tax rates for all businesses, and simplify the tax code. Small business owners have ranked taxes as either the first or second most pressing issue since 2012.
“Tax reform has the potential to have an enormously positive impact on small businesses; it is their top priority in 2017,” said NFIB President and CEO Juanita Duggan in a written testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee. “America’s small business owners and NFIB stand fully prepared to help make tax reform a reality, so long as tax reform starts with small business.”
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