Tax breaks live on in US Senate panel

Washington: This editorial appeared in Saturday’s Washington Post: “Grant me chastity and continence,” St. Augustine famously prayed as a youth. “But not yet.” That same sentiment seems to have governed the Senate Finance Committee’s deliberations last week as the panel went through the annual exercise of extending special-interest tax breaks that clutter the Internal Revenue Code. One after another, members of the committee professed their belief in tax reform, proclaimed that Congress must achieve it soon — and then explained why it would be unfair to give up this or that provision favouring their constituents until the blessed day arrives. This was a bipartisan game.

And the committee does deserve praise for eliminating about 20 of the 75 provisions that came before it. This was an improvement on previous years’ “tax extender” bills. Of course, the whole idea of industry-specific tax breaks that need to be extended every year seems more like a full-employment plan for lobbyists than a means of ensuring “certainty” for employers, but that’s another issue.

For now it’s enough to observe that the tax code desperately needs an overhaul, one that would lower rates while broadening the base of taxable income. But Congress may never get there until each member runs out of reasons that he or she shouldn’t have to make the first move.