Numbers show Harris tax proposal would give to small business with one hand, take with the other
Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled new tax proposals for small businesses Tuesday, which she is expected to announce publicly during her stump speech in New Hampshire on Wednesday.
The proposal seeks to increase the federal government's small business tax deduction by tenfold, from $5,000 to $50,000, which the campaign indicated will help reduce the roughly $40,000 cost burden related to starting a new business. The proposal will also allow small businesses to wait to claim the deduction until they become profitable, meaning they could use it piecemeal in order to save more down the road when they are making more money.
Harris is also slated on Tuesday to unveil a goal of increasing new small business applications. She wants to increase them from 19 million under the Biden administration to 25 million under a potential Harris-Walz administration.
Other components of the proposal include incentivizing state and local governments to minimize the red tape associated with their business regulations,and reducing barriers to obtaining occupational licenses. Harris, meanwhile, pledged to launch a small business expansion fund to help loan providers focused on low-income areas to cover interest costs for small businesses seeking to relocate, or create jobs, in particular regions that have historically received less investment.
Conservative economists are balking at the new tax proposals from Harris, arguing that Harris wants to simultaneously give businesses larger tax deductions while also increasing their tax rates.
"The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing," said Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni. "It's simply incoherent."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment on the new tax proposal package, the specific details of which still remain unknown, and was directed to a statement from former 2020 Biden campaign adviser Rhett Buttle. "This is core to her belief," Buttle said. "She thinks small businesses are part of what creates a strong middle class and helps people build wealth in this country."
Tobin Marcus, the head of U.S. policy and politics at Wolfe Research and a former economic advisor to then-Vice President Joe Biden, told the Washington Post that politically it makes sense for Harris to lean into plans to prop up small businesses and entrepreneurs. "But in practice, targeted federal policies to help small businesses tend to be fairly small-bore," he said.
A statement from the Trump campaign on Sunday, meanwhile, told voters that if they want more money in their pockets, "the only option is to vote for President Trump."