For several years, tax practitioners knew that tax planning in the year 2025 would be exceptionally challenging for individual taxpayers and unincorporated businesses.

In 2017, the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act permanently slashed corporate taxes, while enacting only temporary tax cuts for non-corporate taxpayers. Those temporary tax cuts generally expire on Dec. 31, 2025.

Until the election, we were not sure who would win the election. Since both parties had radically different views of how to move forward with tax legislation, election uncertainty translated into tax law perplexity.

Although we now know that the Republicans will control the White House and 199th Congress for the next two years, there is less uncertainty; but the future of tax law is still ambiguous.

The GOP will not have 60 votes in the Senate and will likely only have a narrow majority in the House.

Therefore, just as in 2017, any tax law changes can only avoid filibuster if they are passed using the budget reconciliation process, which only requires a simple majority in each house of Congress to pass. Since the GOP House margin of control is so thin, rogue House members can exert unprecedented power to derail proposed legislation.

© Santa Clarita Valley Signal