Senators pitch tax shift to fund roads

WASHINGTON — Two top tax writers on the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday released a proposal that includes an option to use revenue generated by overhauling parts of the corporate tax code to help pay for transportation projects, despite warnings from Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch that he does not want to raise taxes to pay for a highway bill.

The international tax overhaul framework released by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, does not specify how much money it would raise or how much could be applied to the Highway Trust Fund, which needs to be reauthorized by the end of the month. Instead Schumer and Portman write that their outline builds on two earlier proposals from President Barack Obama and former House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., both of whom proposed using revenue from international revamp to pay for long-term highway funding.

Camp and Obama both released proposals that would rewrite tax rules for international corporations, shift to a territorial system of taxation, cut tax rates for all businesses and use one-time revenue raised in the transition to pay for transportation investment. The broader business tax overhaul outline included in Obama’s fiscal 2016 budget was projected to raise about $238 billion for the program.

Schumer and Portman stop short of specifying what tax rate companies would pay or how to implement the new system, but it could provide a starting point for the kind of limited business tax change that House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has discussed in recent months.

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