Flat Tax Act
Latest action. Executive Comment Requested from Federal Judicial Center, Graduate Fellows Program, Harry S Truman Scholarship.
Flat Tax Act
This bill authorizes an individual or a person engaged in business activity to make an irrevocable election to be subject to a flat tax (in lieu of the existing income tax provisions) of 19% for the first two years after an election is made, and 17% thereafter.
The bill calculates taxable income for individual taxpayers by subtracting a basic standard deduction and an additional standard deduction for each dependent from the total of wages, retirement distributions, and unemployment compensation. "Business taxable income" is gross active income reduced by certain deductions for the cost of business inputs, wages, and retirement contributions.
The bill imposes an employer tax on the value of excludable compensation provided to employees not engaged in business activity of 19% for the first two years after an election is made under this bill and 17% thereafter.
The bill also repeals the estate, gift, and generation-skipping transfer taxes.
A two-thirds vote of the House of Representatives and the Senate is required to increase the flat tax rate proposed by this bill or to reduce the amount of the standard deduction or business-related deductions allowed by this bill.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on February 15, 2021. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Executive Comment Requested from Federal Judicial Center, Graduate Fellows Program, Harry S Truman Scholarship.
Civibrief does not map this action to a stage in the process. See the official record.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
The latest action on file does not map to a stage Civibrief recognizes, so the page will not name one. The record's own words are the reliable fact here.
The record's latest action, on October 1, 2021: Executive Comment Requested from Federal Judicial Center, Graduate Fellows Program, Harry S Truman Scholarship.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 117th Congress (2021-22), 362 of the 15,242 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 2.4 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one has no outstanding steps listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Michael Burgess (R-TX) introduced it on February 15, 2021. No cosponsors are recorded.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on February 15, 2021, 2033 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 1805 days ago, on October 1, 2021.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 117th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2023 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseExecutive Comment Requested from Federal Judicial Center, Graduate Fellows Program, Harry S Truman Scholarship.
- SenateNot stated in the latest action
- PresidentNot stated in the latest action