WASHINGTON — U.S. House and Senate Republicans on Friday night revealed the details of their $1.5 trillion plan to overhaul the U.S. tax code — an unveiling that comes just days before both chambers are set to vote on the massive proposal and more than likely send it to the White House.
As expected, the 1,097-page bill makes sharp cuts to the corporate tax rate and changes the way income taxes are structured.
The end-of-the-week release drew criticism from Democrats, who argued that it gives the public little time to review the measure.
Who unveils the text of major legislation on a Friday evening? People in a sloppy rush to pass a #GOPTaxScam who want to hide the details. Their version of a #FridayFeeling: Corporations and the ultra-rich can party, the rest of us get the hang-over.
— Rep. Diana DeGette (@RepDianaDeGette) December 15, 2017
“Who unveils the text of major legislation on a Friday evening?” U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, tweeted. “People in a sloppy rush to pass a #GOPTaxScam who want to hide the details.”
Colorado politicians, policymakers, business owners and citizens have closely watched the measure as it bounced around Capitol Hill these past several weeks.
Here are six ways the Republican tax plan is expected to impact Colorado.
Tax breaks for breweries survive
Colorado beer makers have kept a keen eye on negotiations between the House- and Senate-passed plans because a tax break for their industry was one of the many differences between the two proposals.
The House bill did nothing for them, but the Senate plan included a number of incentives — especially for smaller breweries that are popular across Colorado.
Brewers that produce less than 2 million barrels a year would have their taxes halved from $7 to $3.50 per barrel for the first 60,000 barrels they make annually.
The giants of the beer industry would benefit, too: All beer makers would get a $2 reduction in per-barrel taxes for the first 6 million barrels they make or import, from $18 to $16.
Just don’t expect the tax cut to reduce the cost of a six-pack. Industry representatives said it’s their expectation that brewers would put the extra cash back into beer making.
“Located in almost every congressional district, America’s small brewers are manufacturers and entrepreneurs who will use the approximately $80 million in savings annually … to reinvest in their businesses, expand their operations and hire more workers,” noted the Boulder-based Brewers Association in a statement.
City and state budgets likely to get pinched
One target of the Republican plan is an arcane area of tax law called “advance refunding.”
Like homeowners looking to refinance their house, cities and states can use this tool to buy tax-exempt bonds to pay off other debts at a lower interest rate.
On Friday, for example, the Colorado town of Windsor closed on an advance refunding to save itself and its taxpayers about $1.6 million as part of its payment plan for a community recreation facility.
Its proposed elimination has elicited an outcry from local governments about the expected hit to their budgets, and a number of lawmakers, including U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, have raised objections.
“Advance refunding bonds issued in just the last five years will save state and local taxpayers in every state billions of dollars,” Coffman wrote recently in a letter to congressional leaders.
According to the Government Finance Officers Association, Colorado saved at least $211 million between 2012 and 2016 thanks to advance refunding.
Advocates have lobbied for weeks against its elimination, but it looks as if it’s going to happen to help pay for the $1.5 trillion tax package.
“Should the tax code be simplified? Yes,” said Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League. “But there is a right way to do this stuff and there’s the way they do it in Congress.”
Small “pass-through” businesses to benefit
A core argument for the tax bill is its reduction of the corporate tax rate to 21 percent.
But many in the business community initially were skeptical of Republican efforts to overhaul the tax code because of how early drafts treated so-called “pass-through” entities. The reason: They wouldn’t benefit from a change to the corporate tax rate — as they run their business income through their individual tax return.
That changed after lobbying from key lawmakers, and now the measure would grant a new 20 percent deduction for the first $315,000 of joint income.
“Based on what we know now, it will benefit 90 percent of small business, which would mean 90 percent of businesses (would benefit) in Colorado,” Jack Mozloom, a spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business, said of the tax package. “So we support that very strongly.”
The state chapter of NFIB estimates that pass-through businesses account for nearly 57 percent of private-sector employers in Colorado.
Life for wealthy heirs looks even better
A controversial provision of the proposal would change what’s known as the estate tax, which is applied to some households after someone’s death — hence its nicknames: the death tax and the inheritance tax.
Currently, this tax is applied to estates worth more than $5.5 million, or $11 million if it goes to a spouse.
The latest version of the bill would double those caps to $11 million and $22 million — meaning fewer households have to pay the tax. It would not, however, eliminate that tax entirely in 2023 as the House bill once prescribed.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, there are 70 estates in Colorado that are wealthy enough to benefit from the estate tax cut.
Health-insurance fine disappears
After failing last summer to repeal the Affordable Care Act, congressional Republicans are set to dismantle a major pillar of the act, often called Obamacare, in the tax bill.
Their plan would eliminate a fine on Americans who don’t get health insurance – a long-stated goal of Republicans.
The change wasn’t included in the House bill, but the Senate later added the idea and the provision made it through bicameral negotiations.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that eliminating the penalty would reduce the federal deficit by $338 billion over 10 years but increase by 13 million the number of Americans without health insurance – including 235,000 Coloradans, according to one estimate.
Deficit spending and how it could hurt
The tax package is expected to add at least $1 trillion to the federal deficit — even after potential economic growth is taken into account.
That could be problematic for Colorado and other Western states because of a federal law that prompts budget cuts when Congress adds to the deficit.
One such cut is a royalty payment to states for lands worked in their borders by energy companies.
According to the Stateline, a division of the Pew Charitable Trusts, Western states received about $1.3 billion of these payments last year; Colorado’s cut was about $84 million.
Congress has waived these triggered cuts before — and is likely to do so again — but the possibility of losing that money already has worried some policymakers.