House Tax Bill Ticks Key Boxes, But Eventual Compromise Should Focus More on Boosting Investment in R&D and Innovation, Says ITIF

WASHINGTON—The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a leading science and tech policy think tank, today welcomed the unveiling of a tax bill in the U.S. House of Representatives as an important first step toward eventual reform. ITIF released the followed statement from Senior Fellow Joe Kennedy:

The point of corporate tax reform should be to drive economic growth by increasing domestic investment in the factors that spur innovation, productivity, and competitiveness. By that standard, the proposal that House Republican leaders have unveiled is a good first step, because it not only lowers the corporate tax rate and makes it easier for companies to repatriate foreign earnings, but also preserves the research and experimentation tax credit and allows business to immediately write off the full cost of new equipment. However, lowering the rate to 25 percent on “passthrough” businesses will do little to spur growth and adds to the already lopsided tax favoritism passthroughs enjoy. That revenue would be better spent expanding the R&D tax credit, an incentive that helps both C-corps and passthroughs.