While even some Senate Republicans remain skeptical about the tax reform bill approved today by the Senate Finance Committee, count the cable industry in for being fully supportive.
“We applaud the Senate Finance Committee’s effort to approve a comprehensive tax reform bill that will make our tax system fairer and more competitive,” said the NCTA in a statement released this morning.
“Importantly, we welcome the Committee’s proposal to permanently lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent, in addition to improvements made to the expensing language, the retention of the advertising deduction, and a ‘thin cap’ approach to interest deductibility,” the group said.
“For decades, the cable industry has been creating jobs in communities all over America by investing hundreds of billions of dollars to build robust broadband networks and create the best TV content in the world,” NCTA added. “We will continue to work with Congress and the Administration to take the best of the House and Senate bills and pass comprehensive tax reform that will encourage even more investment, innovation and economic expansion.”
The Senate Finance Committee approved the Republican-sponsored bill across party lines.
Senate Republicans hope to pass the bill on the Senate floor after Congress returns from Thanksgiving break. They can afford to lose only two votes from their 52-member majority to pass the bill. However, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., has already said he’ll oppose the bill, and a number of other Republican lawmakers are said to be skeptical.
The bill would permanently trim the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%—an enticing prospect to trickle-down-espousing executives in the telecom industry.
“If you saw tax rates move to 20-25%, we know what we would do. We would step up our investment rate,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told investors earlier this year.