S-1 : Still Just a Bill

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to reduce tax rates and modify policies, credits, and deductions for individuals and businesses.

With respect to individuals, the bill:

• replaces the existing tax brackets (10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%, and 39.6%) with new tax brackets (10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35%, and 38.5%);
• increases the standard deduction;
• suspends the deduction for personal exemptions;
• allows a deduction for business income of pass-through entities (i.e., partnerships, S corporations, limited liability companies, sole proprietorships);
• increases the child tax credit and allows a credit for dependents who are not children;
• suspends the deduction for state and local taxes not incurred in carrying on a trade or business or an activity for the production of income;
• suspends the deduction for home equity loan interest;
• repeals the penalty for individuals who fail to maintain minimum essential health coverage as required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (commonly referred to as the individual mandate);
• suspends the overall limitation on certain itemized deductions;
• suspends the alternative minimum tax for individuals; and
• doubles the basic exemption amount for the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes.

Many of the provisions in the bill that affect individual taxpayers expire after 2025.

For businesses, the bill:

• permanently reduces the corporate tax rate from a maximum of 35% to a flat 20% rate,
• permanently repeals the alternative minimum tax for corporations,
• allows increased expensing of the costs of certain property,
• repeals the deduction for income attributable to domestic production activities,
• modifies the net operating loss deduction,
• limits the deductibility of net interest expenses to 30% percent of the business's adjusted taxable income, and
• modifies the taxation of foreign income.

The bill also: (1) repeals or modifies several additional credits and deductions for individuals and businesses, (2) directs the Department of the Interior to implement an oil and gas leasing program for the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska, and (3) directs the Department of Energy to draw down and sell oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.