America'S Small Business Tax Relief Act Of 2015
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Levin for this opportunity to speak. There has been some talk as to whether or not the Democrats have finally recognized the importance of the deficit and the debt and that since we are going to pass these…
Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Levin for this opportunity to speak.
There has been some talk as to whether or not the Democrats have finally recognized the importance of the deficit and the debt and that since we are going to pass these bills anyway, because there is a negative feeling that we are not going to have tax reform, I assume, that we might as well give some confidence to our small business people that they will have this tax incentive.
Well, that is a way of thinking, but it would appear to me that if we can forgo going through the regular procedure in order to give, at this stage of
our political calendar, the incentive now, I have heard no reason--and I hope I will--as to why we cannot close the loopholes that exist in the Tax Code now.
It seems to me that it goes without dispute that we have trillions of dollars--certainly hundreds of billions of dollars--in the Tax Code that Republicans and Democrats believe shouldn't be there. While we are anxious to reduce the corporate tax so that we are not embarrassingly the highest in the entire world, we also know that there are so many corporations that don't pay any taxes at all. How can we ignore that?
If we can say that we are going to go into debt for a trillion dollars by extensions, why can't we say we are going to pay for it by closing the loopholes? It is clear to me, if we want to make certain steps in advance of a comprehensive tax reform, that we just can't pick that part that business wants as an incentive and at the same time not look at the part that business really is taking advantage of loopholes that the Congress has provided.
So we cannot charge the corporations with being un-American because they are not paying taxes. It is our responsibility to have a Tax Code, as FOX would say, that is fair and balanced.
But this whole idea of not extending the things that people need, such as education, the homeless, the infrastructure, all of the things that can make America greater, to select out the low-hanging fruit for tax reform and leave the hard work as to how we are going to raise the money to pay for it for later does not make any legislative sense. So that if we are being charged with being too fiscally responsible because we are concerned as to what this is doing to our national debt, then help us to raise the funds that are there that are not difficult to recognize.
We do recognize that we have to close these loopholes.
And I might say that it appears as though the corporations and the businesses that receive these obscene tax benefits are the ones that actually contribute the most to the parties that legislate. I am not saying there is a connection, but there is a perception that those people that give high congressional campaign funds are the ones that receive high tax benefits. Certainly it goes without saying that those who are not doing well as relates to fairness and equity in the tax system are those people who don't hire the accountants and the lobbyists.
So let's be fair and balanced and say that if you are going to extend our government to this liability fiscally, then we can raise some money at the same time by closing the tax loopholes.