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1 Michael Schuyler, Slower Growth through Tax Reform: The Baucus Capital Cost Recovery Proposal 1 (2014)

handle is hein.taxfoundation/taxfaale0001 and id is 1 raw text is: * Slower Growth through Tax AOUNDA ON Reform: The Baucus Capital Cost Recovery Proposal Mar. 2014 By Michael Schuyler No. 216 Fellow Abstract The Tax Foundation's Taxes and Growth Model was used to estimate the long-run effects on the U.S. economy and federal revenue of enacting the capital cost recovery plan developed by Senate Finance Committee staff under the guidance of Senator Max Baucus. In general, the Baucus plan would slow the rate at which businesses could claim investment costs as expenses on their tax returns. Because of the time value of money, that would depress the present value of the write-offs and worsen the income tax's bias against saving and investment. Consequently, new investments would be fewer than otherwise, the economy's stock of capital would increase less rapidly, productivity would suffer, and economic growth would slow. Government revenue estimators would score the Baucus proposal as a big revenue raiser, which increases the odds that it will be seen as an option in current or future policy debates. That makes it worth evaluating even though Senator Baucus has moved on to become Ambassador to China. Key Findings The Baucus plan would slow the rate at which businesses could claim investment costs as expenses on their tax returns, which would depress the present value of the write-offs and worsen the income tax's bias against saving and investment. In the long run, Baucus's cost recovery plan would reduce the nation's capital stock by 7.1 percent, wages by 2.2 percent, employment by 0.5 percent (449,800 fewer full-time- equivalent jobs), gross domestic product (GDP) by 2.5 percent The plan appears to increase yearly federal revenue by $33 billion (in 2014 dollars), but when accounting for economic effects, the plan would actually lower federal revenue by $64 billion due to reduced growth. If the proposed, slower capital cost recovery schedule is combined with a revenue-neutral cut in the corporate income tax rate to 30.6 percent, the package would still hurt growth, although not as much as without the rate cut, and federal revenue would fall due to the weaker economy. Instead of slower capital write-offs in exchange for lower rates, a clean cut in the corporate tax rate to 25 percent would increase the capital stock by 5.7 percent, wages by 1.7 percent, employment by 0.4 percent (348,200 additional full-time-equivalent jobs), GDP by 2.0 percent, and federal revenue by $7 billion.

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