Indianapolis Star - Senate Tax Bill Benefits Hoosiers

Op-Ed

By Sen Todd Young

The world has changed a lot in the last three decades, but our outdated tax code remains the same. This week, the Senate delivered on our promise to the American people by taking action to reform the tax code and end the Obamacare individual mandate tax.

"Over the last seven years, I have traveled the state talking to Hoosiers and soliciting their ideas on what Washington can do to help improve their lives. One thing I've heard consistently is that our current tax code places more burdens on growth and opportunity than it does to incentivize them. This is completely backwards. Our code should incentivize work, saving, and investment, not constrain it.

"Our guiding principle for tax reform was simple: allow hardworking Hoosiers to keep and control more of their money. The goal throughout this process has been to ensure middle-class families and those of modest means see real tax relief. Many American workers have not seen a pay raise in a decade. And over fifty percent of American families are living paycheck to paycheck. This is the pay raise Hoosiers have been waiting for.

"We needed to fix our broken tax structure for people like Nathan from Indianapolis, who recently emailed my office about why he needs tax reform. "After taxes I'm struggling from paycheck to paycheck just to make ends meet, and being able to keep more of what I've earned would definitely help me out immensely,' he wrote.

"Tax reform will help our small and medium-sized businesses grow, too.

"Debbie from Clark County contacted my office about her business' challenges. "We are constantly striving to reinvest in our company through new equipment, and increased wages to hire and retain good employees. A lower corporate tax will allow us to buy more equipment, offer benefits and better wages.'

"American-based businesses see some of the highest tax rates of any in the industrialized world. This limits innovation and job growth and causes wages to remain stagnant. We must create an environment that fosters the creation of good-paying jobs and keeps our businesses competitive in an increasingly global economy.

"Since our last reform thirty years ago, the code has become littered with special interest tax breaks and loopholes that have created a complex and unfair tax regime. "Our tax system has become so complicated, the average person needs to hire someone with expertise to help. If most of us didn't have to hire help, right there we'd be saving money,' says Susan from Indianapolis.

"In fact, according to the Tax Foundation, taxpayers spend a combined $99 billion each year complying with individual income tax returns and U.S. businesses spend over $147 billion. By simplifying the code, we will reduce compliance costs so individuals and businesses can keep and invest their hard-earned money.

"By passing the Senate's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, we also made good on our promise to repeal the individual mandate tax -- the most unpopular part of Obamacare. In Indiana, nearly 140,000 Hoosiers choose to pay the tax instead of buying insurance they don't want or can't afford. Eighty-one percent of those who paid the tax made less than $50,000 per year, and 40 percent made less than $25,000.

"Repealing the Obamacare tax, doubling the standard deduction, doubling the Child Tax Credit, and lowering rates for middle-income Americans makes hard-working Hoosiers big winners in this bill.

"The world has changed at an extraordinary pace in the past thirty years. Americans have changed the way we travel, how we communicate, and how we work, but our tax code has not kept up. The Senate took a major step toward bringing our outdated tax system into the 21st century this week with the passage of this bill."

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