Lawmakers Talk Tax Reform But Keep Pushing New Tax Subsidies

Forbes reports:

It is hard not to notice that while policymakers are talking tax reform they are walking tax deform. The more they vow to lower tax rates and eliminate targeted tax preferences (close loopholes in Congress-speak), the more bills they push to create new subsidies or juice up old ones.

Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee created three new tax breaks: a credit for the cost of new professional licenses for military spouses who move to a new duty station, an exclusion for clean coal power grants, and an investment credit for firms that acquire waste-to-heat-power equipment. It also voted to cut excise taxes for producers of hard cider and to allow Paul Newman’s charity to retain control of the Newman’s Own salad dressing brand without losing its tax-exempt status.

Today, the Ways & Means Committee moved to approve measures to restore and make permanent $300 billion worth of tax extenders, including the research credit and the deduction for state and local sales taxes, as well as a proposal to expand Sec. 529 college savings accounts.

Reform? More of the same but different.