In a letter sent to leadership of the Senate Finance and House Ways & Means Committees, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) addressed concerns the group has with several tax proposals impacting the accounting profession in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was advanced by the House Ways & Means Committee on May 14, 2025.
“We understand the challenges in drafting a budget reconciliation bill that permanently extends tax provisions, enhances tax administrability, and balances the interests of individual taxpayers and business taxpayers. Although we support portions of the legislation, we have significant concern over the consistent decrease in parity that professional service providers have experienced under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and the even larger parity gap that they would experience under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the group said in the letter.
The AICPA provided comments on the following tax issues to ensure that the proposed tax bill would not needlessly disadvantage certain taxpayers, would protect taxpayers and tax professionals and would promote tax administrability:
- Retain entity level deductibility of state and local taxes for all pass-through entities.
- Strike the contingency fee provision.
- Allow excess business loss carryforwards to offset business and nonbusiness income
The letter also outlines several provisions included in the bill that are supported by the AICPA, including:
- Allow section 529 plan funds to be used for post-secondary credential expenses.
- Provide tax relief for individuals and businesses affected by natural disasters, albeit not permanent.
- Make permanent the qualified business income (QBI) deduction, increase the QBI deduction percentage, and expand the QBI deduction limit phase-in range.
- Create new section 174A for domestic research and experimental expenditures and suspend required capitalization of such expenditures.
- Retain the current increased individual Alternative Minimum Tax exemption amounts.
- Preserve the cash method of accounting for tax purposes.
- Increase the Form 1099-K reporting threshold for third-party payment platforms.
- Make permanent the paid family leave tax credit.
- Make permanent extensions of international tax rates for foreign-derived intangible income (FDII), base erosion and anti-abuse tax (BEAT), and global intangible low-taxed income (GILTI).
- Exclusion from GILTI certain income derived from services performed in the Virgin Islands.
- Provide greater certainty and clarity via permanent tax provisions, rather than sunset tax provisions.
Additionally, the AICPA shared its list of AICPA-endorsed legislation from the 118th Congress, its guiding principles of good tax policy and its 2025 Tax Legislative Compendium containing 69 proposals that are non-controversial simplification and technical changes to provisions in the Internal Revenue Code.
“We understand the challenges Congress faces as it tackles the complex issues inherent in drafting tax legislation and appreciate your diligence in trying to remove unnecessary burdens that current tax law imposes on families, individuals, and businesses. However, we request that you consider our concerns and recommendations rooted in the Guiding Principles of Good Tax Policy,” the letter concluded.
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Tags: Taxes
