Did you say 20% deduction?
Law firms and other professional service entities won’t be entirely excluded from tax relief for pass-through entities in the final version of the tax bill that is awaiting passage.
The consensus provision on pass-through businesses is in many ways a victory for the ABA. The association had lobbied Congress to accept the Senate version of the tax bill giving a tax deduction to owners of pass-through businesses, including professional service firms.
The House version of the bill would have excluded law firms and all other professional service business from pass-through tax relief, and it would have lowered the maximum tax rate rather than provide for a deduction.
Pass-through businesses include partnerships, Subchapter S corporations and sole proprietorships. Income for such entities pass through to the owners’ individual returns, where it is currently taxed at ordinary income tax rates.
Under the consensus bill, owners of pass-through businesses can take a 20 percent deduction for qualified business income they receive from the entity, according to the Washington Post, the conference report (PDF) and the conference committee’s joint explanatory statement (PDF, see pages 20-40). Qualified business income is nonwage income that is calculated according to a formula. The deduction in the original Senate bill was 23 percent.
The tax deduction is phased out for owners of professional services businesses whose taxable income exceeds $315,000 for married individuals filing jointly or $157,500 for individuals. The threshold in the consensus bill is lower than the thresholds of $500,000 and $250,000 that were in the original Senate bill.