It should come as no surprise to anyone that there are a large number of mistakes and glitches in the tax plan the Republicans just pushed through at the end of last year. What is a surprise to experts, however, is the utterly unprecedented number of said mistakes.
As a result of this mountain of mistakes, Republicans are going to need the Democrats help to make the corrections that are necessary. It remains to be seen if they are going to cooperate.
GLITCHES
One glitch allows wealthy money managers to avoid a crackdown on tax breaks that lets them pay lower taxes on their income than ordinary earners. Another SNAFU denies retailers, restaurants, and others generous write-offs for certain things like remodeling.
Yet a third mistake creates two different start dates for new rules that will make it more difficult for businesses to “shave” their tax bills.
According to an article in Politico, there are dozens of mistakes just like the ones listed above. They concern everything from real estate investments to multinational corporations and farmers.
Considering what we know about this bill, it is hardly surprising that there are so many mistakes in the new law H.R. 1(115). There are many mistakes in bills like this one, that is not unique. However, the massive number of them in this bill, in particular, has experts worried.
Marty Sullivan, chief economist at the nonpartisan Tax Analysts said:
“This is not normal. … There’s always this kind of stuff, but the order of magnitude is entirely different.”
WILL DEMOCRATS HELP?
Will lawmakers be able to work together to fix this new problem?
Republicans reportedly would like to address these problems as soon as next month. They would like to include it as part of the legislation needed to fund the government. In order to achieve that goal, they are going to need the help of the Democrats.
It remains unclear whether the Democrats are going to be willing to do that, however. Considering they were shut out of the process of writing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and Republicans refused to allow them to fix the problems with the Affordable Care Act, who could blame them if they refuse?
COUPLE OF OPTIONS
Democrats could take a couple of different routes here. They could allow the bill to be re-opened and use that as an opportunity to make it better. They could also take a play out of the Republican handbook and hold off on any changes at all until after the mid-term elections in November, as well.
In summation, Republicans rushed this bill through at lightning speed and as a result, there is a myriad of mistakes that could touch every American citizen, negatively or otherwise, unless it gets fixed.
Republicans are still combing the new law and finding new glitches daily.
Feature Image via VisualHunt.
