The new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Ron Wyden (D-OR), and his counterpart, Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal (D-MA), announced their wish-list for tax legislation for 2021 this week.
Today Wyden said he will seek to correct the “broken tax law” and require millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share.
The senator said he was continuing to work on a bill he originally circulated in September to reform the capital gains of over 0.3 percent of taxpayers, with the aim of balancing wages and capital income benefits and the benefits of the Minimize tax deferral.
“When a nurse is taking care of Covid patients in America, you can’t put off paying your taxes, but you’re a billionaire who you can put off, put off and almost never pay taxes. My plan would put an end to that, ”said Wyden.
He said he will also seek to amend tax legislation to promote clean energy through the Clean Energy Act for America by merging 44 current energy regulations into three mission-based incentives to achieve greener modes of transportation and other energy uses.
“(I) am working on reforming energy taxes to prevent polluters from harming the environment,” said Wyden.
He said one of his priorities as chairman of the finance committee will be to try to withdraw the corporate tax giveaways in the 2017 bill.
The policy for corporate taxes should be that big companies pay their fair share, incentivize them to move jobs overseas, and reward companies that invest in America and its workers, the senator explained.
Wyden said he is also working to address the addressing issues of taxing multinationals.
He called for tax laws to help small businesses and said in the 2017 bill it was largely an afterthought.
He called for the interest gap to be closed.
To help low-income families, Wyden said he plans to fully refund the child tax credit and expand the child and care-dependent credit.
On another front, the soon-to-be chairman of the finance committee said it was important to rebuild the IRS after a decade of Republican budget cuts and attacks so that action could be taken against people who refuse to pay their debts.
On Monday, his House, Ways and Means Committee counterpart Richard Neal (D-MA) said tax policy can be changed to reduce inequality. He claimed the 2017 Republican Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) exacerbated the disparities.
Neal said a change to the tax law that he will be promoting to help low-income families will allow full availability of the tax credit for children:
“(It) would lift a million black people out of poverty; a million Latinos; 850,000 white; 120,000 Asian, Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders; and 70,000 Alaskan Indians and natives. “
The proposal was contained in laws passed by the committee and the entire House.
Neal said he will also try to increase the childless tax credit and reduce the age limit for eligibility from 25 to 19 years.
The chairman of Ways & Means also called for the incentives for education and the workforce to be aligned to meet the needs of the 21st century.
Another initiative on his agenda is an effort to improve the refundable portion of American Opportunity Tax Credit and maximize access for Pell Grant recipients.
Increasing the number of employer-sponsored care recipients who can receive a tax liability is also on his wish list for 2021.