Tax Code Getting More and More Temporary
“In the late 1990s,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “there were typically fewer than a dozen tax provisions that had just a limited lease on life and needed to be renewed every year or so. Today there are 141.”
The tax deal negotiated by the White House and Republican leaders replaces some of those temporary provisions with other temporary provisions—a two-year extension of personal income tax rates, a new two-year rate for the estate tax that was to expire—and adds some new ones, such as a one-year cut in the payroll tax.
Many economists believe that uncertainty over tax provisions is making it hard for businesses to make plans for expansion.
