Senate Receives 1,400+ Tax Reform Submissions

Leaders of the Senate Finance Committee are being inundated with suggestions for tax reform, despite the limited prospects for comprehensive reform ahead of next year’s elections.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and the Ranking Democrat on the committee, Ron Wyden, D-Ore., released more than 1,400 submissions Wednesday from stakeholders on how to best to overhaul the nation’s broken tax code. 

In March, the Senate Finance Committee sought input from the public in an effort to provide additional data and information to the Committee’s bipartisan tax working groups, which are currently analyzing existing tax law and examining policy trade-offs and available reform options within each group’s designated area (see Senators Hatch and Wyden Revive Tax Reform Effort). 

“We thank the stakeholders and public who provided us with this valuable data and input,” Hatch and Wyden said in a joint statement. “These submissions have equipped us with the ability to better evaluate how reforming the tax code will affect both American families and business of all kinds.  As our bipartisan groups work towards producing substantive recommendations on how to reform the tax code, they will now be able to consider these valuable ideas.”

All comments received by the committee that met submission requirements were made public. The submissions can be found here.

The total submissions to each bipartisan tax working group are classified as follows:

Individual Income Tax - 448
Business Income Tax - 332
Savings & Investment -128
International Tax - 347
Community Development & Infrastructure - 207 

Each of the five bipartisan working groups on the committee is currently working to produce findings on current tax policy and legislative recommendations within its area, with the goal of having recommendations from each of the five working groups completed by the end of May.

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