GOP jobs plan incorporates tax reform

As expected, tax reform is a major plank in the package of economic growth proposals House Republicans released on Thursday.

In large part, the GOP rollout contained few new proposals, including when it comes to taxes. The package calls for reducing the top tax rate for both businesses and individuals to 25 percent, and for allowing U.S. multinationals to bring overseas profits into the country without penalty.

“Obviously, our tax code is broken. It's too complex, too costly, it's too burdensome for families and small business owners,” Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.) — the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who has been pushing for comprehensive tax reform — said at a news conference unveiling the Republican initiative.

Camp added that the GOP would “look at the various deductions, loopholes, tax expenditures, preferences, whatever you want to call them; it's very important that we address that."

For his part, Rep. Sandy Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking member on Ways and Means, said the GOP ideas would raise taxes on the middle class while decreasing them for the wealthy. “We need tax reform, not loose talk from Republicans about reducing the top individual rate to 25 percent,” Levin said in a statement. 

The GOP rollout comes after Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), the House majority leader, and Rep. Kevin Brady, a senior member of Ways and Means, have pushed for a so-called repatriation holiday that would allow multinationals to bring profits stored abroad into the U.S. at a reduced tax rate.

Cantor and Brady have envisioned the holiday as sort of a bridge to tax reform, but Camp said Thursday that he would rather look at treatment of offshore profits within the broader tax reform discussion.

“Repatriation is an important idea. I'm for it. I think it's also going to be an important part of fundamental tax reform,” Camp said.

The Treasury Department has said that it would look at repatriation only in the overall reform talks. 

Still, WIN America Campaign, a group pushing for a tax holiday, said in a statement they thought the GOP plan was a sign their side was gaining momentum.

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