Dan Coats: “As the Senator from Oregon has said, small business is hit particularly hard these days. Because many choose not to…”

“As the Senator from Oregon has said, small business is hit particularly hard these days. Because many choose not to incorporate, there is a passthrough, a passthrough of taxation rates as if these small businesses were individuals. They are taxed at that rate. As my friend from Oregon knows, at the end of 2012 that tax rate is scheduled, under current law, to rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent. Small businesses, which currently are having trouble getting credit and making ends meet, are facing a tax increase--within a relatively short period of time. That is a deterrent to making decisions relative to expanding the business and hiring new people, because they know the taxes they have to pay out of their earnings flow through directly to them so they are going to have to be paid at the highest rate. Again, the Coats-Wyden bill prevents that from happening. It keeps those rates at the current level. Also, as my friend from Oregon has said, simplification is a major underlying principle of the Wyden-Coats tax reform bill. It is a nightmare for individuals, as the Senator from Oregon said, to try to figure out how to do this. In fact, about $6 billion is spent each year to hire professionals to fill out tax forms because it is virtually impossible for many individuals to figure it out and work through this, as my friend said, bureaucratic water torture of a process.…”