Republican lawmakers are touting a bill introduced this week by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor aimed at cutting taxes for small businesses, including Rep. Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia who says it offers a way “to get out of this stagnation we are in.”
“I’m definitely voting for the Small Business Tax Cut Act of 2012,” Moore Capito told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.
The plan would “allow small businesses with fewer than 500 employees to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their active business income, irrespective of how the small business is organized,” according to Cantor’s website.
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"In my state of West Virginia we have over 28,000 small businesses that employ over 300,000 people,” Moore Capito said. “I think it’s important, and will be very useful for the economy in a whole, to have tax relief for the small business person in hopes they will hire somebody else, or order a new piece of equipment, or invest in a way that will get our economy moving.”
Critics of Cantor’s plan say it would unfairly benefit the wealthy because the tax cut does not require companies to use the money they would save to hire new employees or make capital investments.
Moore Capito admitted the plan isn’t perfect but said, “at this point, I would say the most important thing is this tax relief to get to folks who are investing in their own company.”
The bill might not come up for a vote in the Senate — according to published reports —once it passes the House, as it’s expected to do Thursday. But Moore Capito, who was the first Republican woman elected to Congress from West Virginia, said she is holding out hope that lawmakers will reach across the aisle to promote job creation.
“We were able to pass the Jobs Act three weeks ago and the president signed it into law,” she said. “We were able to jump the hurdles of bipartisanship and get that done in the name of job creation. I don’t see why we can’t do the same with this bill.”
Moore Capito, who is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said the bill “won’t be a conflict” to the mostly Republican-led effort to cut out loopholes and special provisions in the tax code because the small business tax cut is “just a temporary one year look at taxes.”
When asked about the Democratic plan named the “Buffet rule,” Moore Capito called it an “an election year gimmick and a ploy really.”
The Buffet rule would establish a 30 percent minimum tax on people who make more than $1 million a year. It failed to pass in the Senate Monday.
And while Moore Capito says it’s a “non-starter” she did say Congress needs to address inequality in the tax system.
“We really need to overhaul our tax system and make it fairer, and make it easier. And I think once we look at the fairness equation, we are going to spread the obligation and, in some cases, working Americans would find that the tax rate would be actually lower,” Moore Capito said.
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