Corporate Tax Cuts Don’t Need to Be Extended Because They Don’t Expire

On Marginal Revolution, Tyler Cowen quotes from a news item in the Financial Times:

There are several investment implications of Trump back in the White House,” said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Cresset Capital. “[Most notable would be] a higher-for-longer Fed, as monetary policymakers increase the likelihood that the corporate tax cuts will be extended next year.”

Did you spot the error in the quote from Jack Ablin? Neither Tyler nor, as far as I can tell, any of his many commenters did.

The corporate tax cuts, if by that you mean the drop in the corporate tax rate to 21%, don’t need to be extended next year because they don’t expire next year. They are one of the few parts of the 2017 tax cut that are permanent unless Congress explicitly changes them. And thank goodness for that because they are one of best parts of the 2017 law. (The other one is the restriction on the deduction for state and local taxes, which does expire next year.)

I’ve seen a number of people claim on line that the cut in the corporate income tax rate was temporary. I corrected a Reason writer who made that claim. To his credit, he updated his post to reflect the truth.

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