Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on Senate Finance Hearing: “Next year, Congress must stop the grift and close these loopholes for good”

September 12, 2024

Groundwork’s Lindsay Owens on Senate Finance Hearing: “Next year, Congress must stop the grift and close these loopholes for good”

Today, the Senate Finance Committee convened a hearing on the tax avoidance strategies of the ultra-rich and the upcoming expiration of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, when many tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations expire. You can watch a recording of the hearing here.

Indivar Dutta-Gupta from Georgetown University and Bob Lord from Patriotic Millionaires testified that tax loopholes exploited by the ultra-rich are worsening economic inequality and highlighted that next year Congress has an opportunity to fix the tax code so it works for everyone.

Groundwork Collaborative Executive Director Lindsay Owens reacted to the hearing with the following statement:

“The wealthiest Americans continue to use every trick in the book to duck and dodge paying their taxes. It’s unpatriotic. It starves our communities of revenue for needed investments. And it erodes faith in our democracy. Next year, Congress must stop the grift and close these loopholes for good.”

Email press@groundworkcollaborative.org to speak with one of Groundwork’s experts about the upcoming 2025 tax debate. Read Dutta-Gupta’s testimony and Lord’s testimony as submitted for the record for more.

INDIVAR DUTTA-GUPTA WRITTEN TESTIMONY

“Fundamentally, higher taxes on the wealthy and ultrawealthy can be fair and efficient, creating equitable economic growth that raises living standards for all Americans—and strengthening our democracy as well.”

BOB LORD WRITTEN TESTIMONY

“American wealth is more concentrated in the hands of the ultra-wealthy than at any time since the Gilded Age…Our tax system is the last line of defense – the firewall – against undue wealth concentration.”

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND

A policy brief from the Institute for Macroeconomic Policy and Analysis finds that raising taxes on dividends and capital gains would raise major revenue, yield a modest increase in GDP, and decrease inequality.
In a recent blog post, Groundwork’s Rakeen Mabud and the Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s Janelle Jones and Michael Linden found that businesses did not necessarily invest the money they saved from the 2017 tax law – disputing recent analyses of the legislation.
Overall, the data show the 2017 law did not create an economic boom. In the years following the cuts until the pandemic, economic growth and corporate investment continued at about the same pace as before the tax breaks. The gains are part of longer-term economic trends, fueled by Obama-era economic policies.
The 2017 tax law slashed the corporate tax rate with the promise that doing so would “give the typical American household around a $4000 pay raise” and that “more than 70% of this [tax cut] will be returned to workers.” That never happened. Ninety percent of workers did not see a raise. Median wage growth actually slowed in 2018 and 2019 after the TCJA became law.