WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Rep. Burgess Owens (UT-04) co-sponsored the TCJA Permanency Act,legislation to make permanent tax cuts for individuals and small businesses originally enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017. 

“The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act provided sweeping tax cuts for low and middle-income Americans and helped our nation achieve historic economic growth,” said Rep. Owens. “Thanks to Biden’s out-of-touch economic policies and Washington’s over-spending, families and small businesses are struggling with four-decade high inflation, shrinking paychecks, and soaring costs. The TCJA Permanency Act will deliver much-needed relief by permanently lowering tax rates for individuals and families and allowing Americans to keep more of their hard-earned money.” 

Without Congressional action, 23 different provisions of the 2017 Republican tax law are set to expire after 2025. According to the Tax Foundation, “most taxpayers will see a tax hike unless some or all provisions are extended.”

Key Components of the TCJA Permanency Act :

1. Permanently lowers tax rates for individuals and families, allowing Americans at every income level to keep more of their hard-earned money
2. Preserves the 20 percent deduction for small businesses, ensuring taxes won’t go up on Main Street businesses, which employ nearly half of the U.S. workforce
3. Maintains the higher standard deduction, increasing the amount of tax-free income a middle-class family can earn
4. Locks in the doubled child tax credit, further encouraging workforce participation
5. Permanently simplifies the tax filing process, allowing 9 out of 10 Americans to get the full benefit of tax deductions without the headache of tracking receipts or itemizing

The legislation also includes a number of important updates to a previous iteration of this bill, including several technical fixes and expanded eligible uses of 529 savings plans to help parents and students.

Key Background:

• TCJA reduced taxes on middle-class families and small businesses across the country and created nearly 5 million jobs in the two years following its passage.
• It also delivered the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years (3.5 percent), all-time low unemployment for African American and Hispanic workers, and the fastest wage growth in a decade.
• The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office also found that TCJA reduced federal tax rates for families across every income level while actually increasing the share of taxes paid by the top 1 percent of American households.
• According to the Tax Foundation, making TCJA’s individual tax provisions permanent will lead to 2.2 percent higher GDP in the long-term.

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