During Wednesday's congressional forum in Tulsa, OK, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) spoke about proposed tax policies.
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00:00Here's what the major part of the proposal is.
00:02I hear a lot of folks that say, okay, this is a huge tax decrease.
00:07Can you tell you what it actually is?
00:09Currently scheduled right now, every single tax rate in America goes up January 1st of next year.
00:16The calendar, literally the calendar shift when that occurs, every single tax rate goes up.
00:21Some of my colleagues, I've heard them say this tax piece is only for billionaires and billionaires.
00:25But let me say this again, every single American's tax rate will go up January 1st of next year.
00:33So our first step is just keep the rates the same as they are.
00:39Does that sound radical?
00:41Just don't make them go up.
00:42They're not going to go down either.
00:44Sorry, we still have a giant deficit.
00:46But just keep the rates the same as they are.
00:49That will help every single small business.
00:51That will help every single family to not have an impending doom coming up next year.
00:56For the average family, they'll only do about $4,000 a year more in taxes if we don't act on this.
01:03So it is important that we actually act on this.
01:06The second thing we're trying to do is to try to make the tax changes permanent so that a calendar date doesn't change the future rates.
01:13The Congress changes the future rates.
01:15So that we don't have to worry about another ticking time bomb again another five or six years in the future that we know that's the rate, that stays the rate, and that we can at some point vote to be able to do that.
01:25But there's a large-scale debate to be able to do that.
01:28So rates would stay the same.
01:31Rates would be permanent.
01:32We're also trying to deal with some of the business aspects of it that are pretty common sense of it.
01:36Let me give you one that I'm reading right now called full dispensing.
01:39Full dispensing is a pretty rational argument on this.
01:41When you buy a big piece of capital equipment, you can expense that out over several years.
01:49You're going to pay the same amount of tax on it, but it would be so much better if you get to write it off in the same year that you buy it.
01:59Because that's when you have the big expenses of business.
02:02So what I'm trying to do is to be able to say the same year that you buy a big piece of equipment,
02:06you should also be able to deduct that that same exact year, not have to slowly deduct it over several years.
02:13What difference does that make?
02:14It encourages a lot of businesses to go ahead and buy that big piece of equipment because they know they can write it off this year on their taxes.
02:21That encourages them to produce more, be more efficient, add more people in.
02:25The person that actually made that piece of equipment sells additional pieces of equipment, and it keeps the economy rolling on that.
02:31It's a common-sense piece that makes no difference in the amount of revenue coming into the country,
02:36but it makes a big difference in actually how the economy actually runs.
02:40Let me give you another one.
02:41This has been an ongoing project for me for a while.
02:45Nonprofits.
02:47In 2017, we doubled the standard deduction.
02:51So it made taxes a lot simpler for a lot of people.
02:54But here's what it also did, is it meant the vast majority of non-profit donations are not tax deductible anymore.
03:01If you deduct your non-profit donations, I'll smile at you and say you're the top 9% of Americans.
03:09Because the top 9% of Americans are the ones that itemize and the ones that actually get the tax benefit from giving to non-profits.
03:17I'd like to make that tax benefit from giving to non-profits for every American, and any American that wants to be able to do that.
03:25Why?
03:26Because the non-profits are an essential part of our social safety net.
03:29Our safety net, our families, our churches and non-profits, and then government.
03:35And right now, we are not incentivizing giving to non-profits.
03:38And I know Americans are generous.
03:40I've heard that all the time.
03:42We're generous people.
03:43We give anyway.
03:43But people get more in December for a reason, and it's not the Christmas spirit.
03:49It's because they know I've got to give X amount to be able to go towards taking this off on my taxes if you're in that group.
03:54But if you're not in that group, then you're the 91% of Americans that don't get to write off your non-profit donations.
04:01You don't have the same incentive.
04:03Also this, let me just set this number out in front of you.
04:05The average American gives 1.7% of their income to non-profits.
04:121.7%.
04:14From the time of COVID, and just before when a 2017 tax bill actually kicked in, to now, non-profits have $20 billion less in giving.
04:27Because of that change to the tax bill, $20 billion.
04:33That's a huge effect on the hungry, on the homeless, and the hurting.
04:37A huge effect.
04:38So I want to be able to turn that back on.
04:41There's a million other little fights on tax bill.
04:43And if y'all have questions about it, we get a chance to be able to go through it.
04:46Otherwise, I'm going to make everybody fall asleep in their desert talking about tax issues.
04:50But just know, this is the time.
04:52If you've got ideas and thoughts on tax issues, this is the time to be able to bring it.
04:56Because we have a lot of issues that we've got to be able to deal with.
04:59Whether it's IDCs for oil and gas, or whether it's non-profits, or whether it's full-expensing,
05:04there's a lot of things that we're dealing with right now and going through the details of those things.
05:08So we'll set that aside and talk about it later.
05:10Thank you very much.