WASHINGTON, D.C. – Equipment distributors are desperate for a simpler, more certain tax code that encourages economic growth and job creation, Associated Equipment Distributors (AED) told the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways & Means’ yesterday. In its comments on the committee’s small business tax reform discussion draft, AED called for comprehensive tax reform to create a more competitive tax environment and urged Congress to:

• Simplify and restore long-term certainty to the nation’s tax code;

• Proceed simultaneously with corporate and pass-through reform to ensure both large and small businesses benefit from improvements to the code;

• Make increased Sec. 179 expensing and phase out levels permanent and index them to inflation;

• Ensure brick and mortar companies are held harmless from the Affordable Care Act’s new 3.8 percent tax on passive income;

• Protect family businesses and farms from the threat of being destroyed by the estate tax;

• Oppose any effort to repeal the LIFO (“last in, first out”) accounting method; and

• Increase the gas tax and create new user fee revenues dedicated solely to infrastructure investment to put the highway trust fund back on solid, long-term fiscal footing.

“I commend Chairman Camp and Ranking Member Levin on the highly transparent and inclusive process they’ve created to gather tax reform ideas,” said AED Vice President of Government Affairs Christian Klein. “We look forward to working with the committee in a bipartisan manner to finish the job the committee started and create a tax code that will make our economy stronger and the United States a better place to do business.”

AED’s 2013 Vice Chairman Tim Watters of Hoffman Equipment Co. echoed these sentiments in his testimony last week at a House Committee on Small Business hearing titled “Small Business Tax Reform: Growth Through Simplicity.”

AED’s comments will be included in a final report by the Joint Committee on Taxation, which will be delivered to the Committee on Ways & Means on May 6. More information about the Committee on Ways & Means’ small business reform efforts can be found at http://waysandmeans.house.gov/taxreform/.

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