Jason Smith distorts Biden's Build Back Better Plan

Jason Smith's recent missive again contains misleading statements supported by untruths. Whoever wrote the missive seems to be confusing Trump's tax plan with the Build Back Better plan.

Trump's plan resulted in 40 percent of the tax cuts to go to the top one percent and abolished the estate tax that affected assets over $5.49 million. The 3 percent tax cut on the bottom 80 percent expires in 2027 but wealthiest 20 percent continue to get all their tax cuts! Other changes allow corporations to avoid taxes by moving operations and jobs overseas which hurts working Americans.

President Biden's Build Back Better plan was scored by the Congressional Budget Office to raise the deficit by $367 billion but does not include the revenue due to tax increases. These are the sources of the increased tax revenue:

Increased Current Tax Law Enforcement: $127 billion

Minimum Tax on Book Income: Could be called the "Amazon Tax," is to impose a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations with book income of over $1 billion. This acceleration of tax would raise tax revenue by about $320 billion.

Surtax on Corporate Buybacks: BBB proposes a one percent surtax on corporate buybacks which could raise $125 billion in tax revenue. This affects corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook (now called Meta), Oracle and Microsoft.

Global Intangible Low Income Tax (GILTI): BBB proposes to enforce and increase the GILTI tax and reform international taxation. GILTI seems to affect about 120 of the S&P 500, primarily technology and finance companies. This change raises $280 billion.

Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) Expansion: This provision will affect many pass-through entities, like Subchapter-S corporations and LLCs. This increases taxes by $230 billion. (From Forbes 11/21/21 Leon LaBrecque)

The additional tax revenue would total an estimated $1.082 trillion. There are no changes in the capital gains rates or individual tax rates, except for high-income taxpayers.

Notice these are not taxes that “...hits American families...,” and since $1.082 trillion is larger than $367 billion, the BBB plan would reduce the budget deficit.

Smith states “The message I hear over and over from Missourians is they just want the government off their backs.” These are probably the same people who think Ronald Reagan's administration was good for the middle class, and they read Smith's missives and believe them.

This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Jason Smith distorts Biden's Build Back Better Plan