Tax pros doubt reforms this year

Nearly three-quarters of tax, finance and business professionals are not confident that comprehensive tax reform will be passed in Congress in 2017, according to a recent Deloitte poll, while nearly half are doubtful about tax reform’s prospects.

When asked how confident they are that a comprehensive tax reform bill will be enacted this year, 49.1 percent said they are doubtful, while 24.6 percent said they are not at all confident. Republican leaders in Congress and the Trump administration, as well as Senate Democrats, released some of their broad tax reform principles late last month, but the details are still under discussion (see Republican leaders release tax reform update and Senate Democrats lay out bipartisan tax reform principles).

Nearly two-thirds of the survey respondents (63.5 percent) said compromise in Congress is most needed to ensure passage of tax reform. For the survey, Deloitte polled more than 3,100 attendees during a webinar last month.

Nearly half the respondents (48.2 percent) indicated lowering the corporate tax rate is the feature of corporate tax reform most likely to boost economic growth in the U.S., while 15.5 percent said it was simplifying the tax code. Only 5.7 percent thought a border-adjusted tax would boost economic growth. Only 5.7 percent thought a border-adjusted tax would boost economic growth. Seventy percent of the respondents said a top corporate tax rate of 20 or 25 percent is the most likely to be in a tax reform bill.

Tax reform prospects

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