“It means that’s going to be an issue in the next presidential race,” House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said.
The major expiring tax breaks in the House-passed version of Trump’s “big beautiful bill” are boosts in the standard deduction, the deduction for seniors, and the child tax credit, along with the cancellation of taxes on tips, overtime pay, and car loan interest.
Budget hawks are saying this sets up a tax cliff in the legislation similar to the one Republicans are now trying to surmount, since most of the 2017 Trump tax cuts expire at the end of this year.
“There’s a total tax cliff in there. There’s about $1.5 trillion worth of taxes that expire in four years, five years, which means what? In five years, they’ll just keep them going. This is why we end up with the same problem,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said last week.
“It is 100 percent a gimmick to have tax cuts that you’re putting in place for four or five years,” he added.
The legislation is likely to undergo substantial changes in the Senate, including a change in the accounting baseline that will allow trillions of dollars worth of deficit additions coming from the extension of previous tax cuts to be ignored.
But senators are sounding open to maintaining the split between making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) permanent and allowing the additional cuts for workers, families, retirees and consumers to expire.
The Hill’s Tobias Burns and Aris Folley have more here.
