Small Business Groups Urge Tax Reform Instead of Tax Hikes from Fiscal Cliff

A group of business trade associations have sent a letter to Congress urging lawmakers to reject President Obama’s call for higher marginal tax rates on main street employers. 

A total of 42 business organizations employing tens of millions of workers sent the letter to Capitol Hill urging Congress to avert tax hikes and instead pursue comprehensive tax and entitlement reform.

“[W]e strongly urge Congress to pursue comprehensive tax reform that lowers rates on all forms of business income while enacting significant entitlement reforms that put the federal budget on a sustainable fiscal path, they wrote. “[W]e call on Congress to avoid raising marginal tax rates on employers, either as part of negotiations over the fiscal cliff, or as part of larger effort to reform the tax code. Instead, Congress should seek to enact comprehensive tax reform that simplifies the tax code and encourages economic growth for both pass-through businesses and corporations.”

The small business groups cited a recent economic report from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation that nearly 1 million businesses and more than half of all small business income earned will be hit by the tax hikes. A recent Congressional Budget Office report confirms that if those same tax rates rise, hundreds of thousands of jobs could disappear.