WASHINGTON _ Even as Senate leaders seek to enhance their tax package to make it more attractive to middle-class Americans, they are proposing making the new individual benefits expire at the end of 2025 in an effort to avoid adding to the long-term federal deficit.
Proposed cuts to corporate taxes would be permanent, under the revised Senate plan.
They would also lower some individual tax brackets from 22.5 percent, 25 percent and 32.5 percent, proposed last week, to 22 percent, 24 percent and 32 percent, respectively.
But those changes, as well as reforms to help lower costs for so-called pass-through businesses that pay taxes through the individual code, would expire in eight years to avoid adding to the deficit.
Because the Senate is planning to use a special budget reconciliation process to pass the tax bill, the proposal must not increase the deficit after 10 years, according to an arcane Senate regulation known as the Byrd rule.
The changes to the bill mean it would add $1.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, down from $1.5 trillion in the original bill and below the threshold needed to pass the legislation on a simple majority vote in the Senate.
But more importantly, revenues turn positive in 2027, adding $30 billion to the Treasury, according to an analysis by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. That indicates the bill would meet the Byrd rule requirement.
Expiration of the individual tax cuts are likely to bolster criticism that the GOP overhauls favors corporations over middle-class Americans.
