Eliminating Excess Benefits from the Section 199A Deduction: Options for Reform under TCJA Extension

Eliminating Excess Benefits from the Section 199A Deduction: Options for Reform under TCJA Extension

Entitlements Social Security Tax Policy

Eliminating Excess Benefits from the Section 199A Deduction: Options for Reform under TCJA Extension

Alexander Arnon and Brendan Novak · · 38 min read
Eliminating Excess Benefits from the Section 199A Deduction: Options for Reform under TCJA Extension

The deduction for pass-through income under section 199A provides a benefit in excess of 20 percent (“excess benefit”) for some taxpayers due to its interaction with the progressive tax rate system. As Congress considers extending 199A beyond 2025, options to remove the excess benefit while maintaining the 20 percent tax benefit could raise between $46B and $178B over the 10-year budget window, depending on design.


Key Points

  • Section 199A provides a 20 percent reduction in the tax rate for qualified business income relative to ordinary income tax rates. Because this discount is structured as a deduction rather than a rate reduction, there is an excess benefit beyond 20 percent for some taxpayers.

  • One way to address this excess benefit is to set the marginal tax rates for qualified business income to 80 percent of ordinary rates, which would deliver the intended 20 percent benefit without the excess benefit.

  • This brief presents revenue estimates for several policy design variations that address the excess benefit. These reform options would increase revenues between $46B and $178B over the 10-year budget window, relative to extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (including the original deduction as enacted in 2017).

Background

Section 199A provides a deduction for 20 percent of qualified business income (QBI) from pass-through businesses. Enacted as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, the deduction’s stated intention was to align the overall tax rate on pass-through businesses more closely with the tax rate on C corporations. However, the deduction generally provides a tax benefit to QBI greater than 20 percent due to its interaction with the progressive structure of individual income tax rates. This “excess” tax benefit arises because the deduction offsets income taxed at higher marginal rates first, lowering the average tax rate on all QBI by more than 20 percent.

Figures 1 and 2 illustrate the excess benefit with a stylized example. Consider a single tax filer whose only income is QBI and who takes no deductions other than a 20 percent deduction for QBI, where applicable.

Figure 1 shows the relationship between tax liability and income under a simple baseline scenario (red line), where tax liability is calculated using only the tax brackets and statutory marginal rates applicable in 2025. Figure 1 also shows liability under two alternative approaches to providing a tax benefit to QBI: a 20 percent deduction analogous to section 199A (blue line) and a 20 percent across-the-board reduction in marginal tax rates (yellow line). Both policies reduce liability relative to baseline tax rates, but the deduction reduces liability to a greater degree than the simple rate reduction. This difference creates the excess benefit.

Figure 1. Tax Liability Under Illustrative Scenarios

DOWNLOAD DATA

Figure 2 plots the excess benefit, defined as the percentage reduction in tax liability with a 20 percent deduction for QBI over and above 20 percentage points. The excess benefit equals zero in the lowest tax rate bracket but rises sharply around each tax bracket threshold, reaching more than 10 percentage points in some income ranges. The sawtooth pattern in Figure 2 shows how the excess benefit depends on the difference between a taxpayer’s income and the surrounding tax bracket thresholds.

Figure 2. Excess Tax Benefit Under Illustrative QBI Deduction

DOWNLOAD DATA
Options for Reform under TCJA Extension

The section 199A deduction is scheduled to expire at the end of 2025 along with other temporary provisions of TCJA. However, there appears to be bipartisan support in Congress for retaining the deduction as part of a broader TCJA extension package and legislation to make section 199A permanent has been introduced in both houses.

An alternative approach that would extend the 20 percent tax benefit for QBI without providing uneven excess benefits to some taxpayers would be to replace the deduction under section 199A with a preferential tax rate structure for QBI. Instead of receiving a 20 percent deduction, QBI would be removed from ordinary income and receive a 20 percent tax rate reduction (i.e. be taxed at 80 percent of the taxpayer’s ordinary marginal tax rate).

The preferential rate structure would be subject to limitations for taxpayers with income above certain thresholds. These limitations are adapted from the existing section 199A deduction “guardrails.” The Congressional Research Service provides a detailed explanation of these rules.

Under the rate reduction alternative, taxpayers with taxable income above certain thresholds would face two limitations on preferential rates for QBI:

  • The 20 percent rate reduction would phase out with taxable income for QBI from a specified service trade or business.1

  • The amount of QBI subject to reduced rates would be limited to 250 percent2 of the taxpayer’s share of W-2 wages paid by the business. The limitation is phased in on taxable income from the thresholds.

The thresholds and phasing are based on the current limitations in section 199A. For joint filers, the limitations apply to taxpayers with taxable income (in 2024) greater than $383,900; for all other filers, the limitations apply beginning at $191,950. The taxable income thresholds are adjusted annually for inflation.

We consider two alternatives for the taxable income range over which the benefit is phased out:

  • Short phase-out: Retain the same phasing range as the current section 199A deduction; $100,000 of income for joint filers and $50,000 for all other filers.

  • Long phase-out: Phase out the benefit over $500,000 of income for joint filers and $250,000 for all other filers.3

QBI could be separated from ordinary income and taxed at preferred rates in several different ways. The impact of reduced marginal rates depends on two choices in particular: 1) how QBI is ordered relative to ordinary income and other preferred income in the tax computation; 2) how deductions (standard or itemized) are allocated across QBI, ordinary income, and other preferred income.

We consider three potential configurations:

  • Preferred income treatment: QBI is taxed at applicable marginal tax rates after ordinary taxable income. Deductions in excess of ordinary income are applied against QBI first, before other preferred income. This configuration is similar to the current treatment of long-term capital gains.

  • Separate class of income: QBI is taxed at applicable marginal tax rates before ordinary taxable income. Deductions in excess of ordinary income cannot be used to reduce QBI. This configuration lowers the value of the reduced rates by applying the reduction to lower marginal rates, but raises the value of standard or itemized deductions since they offset ordinary income taxed at higher marginal rates.

  • Proportional allocation: QBI is taxed at applicable marginal tax rates after ordinary taxable income. Deductions are allocated proportionally to ordinary income and QBI. This configuration balances the benefit of the rate reduction on QBI by lowering the value of the deductions allocated to QBI.

Each of these configurations produces different revenue effects because under a progressive marginal tax rate structure, the order of operations matters when rates vary between different classes of income, and deductions are more valuable to the taxpayer (and therefore more costly to the government) when applied to classes of income with higher marginal rates, all else equal.

Estimated Revenue Effects

PWBM estimates that replacing the section 199A deduction with a 20 percent rate reduction for QBI would increase revenues by between $46 and $178 billion over the 10-year period 2026-2035, depending on the parameters selected. These estimates are relative to a baseline in which all expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) are made permanent after 2025, including the current policy section 199A deduction.

Table 1 shows estimated changes in revenue by year for several alternative versions of the proposal.

Table 1. Estimated Revenue Effects, FY 2026-2035

Change in revenues, billions of dollars

DOWNLOAD DATA
Provision 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035 Total, 2026-2035
Preferred income treatment, long phase-out ($250K/500K) 4.6 3.9 4.1 4.2 4.4 4.5 4.7 4.9 5 5.2 45.5
Preferred income treatment, short phase-out ($50K/100K) 6.9 7.3 7.6 7.8 8 8.3 8.6 8.8 9.1 9.3 81.7
Separate class income, long phase-out ($250K/500K) 10.5 13.8 14.4 14.9 15.4 16 16.6 17.1 17.6 18.2 154.5
Separate class income, short phase-out ($50K/100K) 12 16 16.6 17.2 17.8 18.4 19 19.6 20.2 20.8 177.6
Proportional allocation, long phase-out ($250K/500K) 7.5 9 9.3 9.5 9.8 10.2 10.6 10.9 11.2 11.6 99.6
Proportional allocation, short phase-out ($50K/100K) 9.6 12.1 12.5 12.9 13.3 13.7 14.2 14.6 15 15.4 133.3

Notes: Estimates are relative to a baseline in which all expiring provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) are made permanent after 2025, initially including the section 199A deduction.



This analysis was produced by Alex Arnon and Brendan Novak. Mariko Paulson prepared the brief for the website.

  1. Specified service trades or businesses are defined as trades or businesses where the principal asset of that trade or business is the reputation or skill of one or more of its employees, including businesses performing services in the fields of health, law, accounting, consulting, brokerage services, etc.  ↩

  2. This is five times the current 50 percent limitation under section 199A to maintain proportionality, because it applies to income rather than a 20 percent (one fifth) deduction.  ↩

  3. These figures are five times the current section 199A phasing ranges $100,000 for joint filers and $50,000 for all other filers. The larger phasing range of $500,000 of income for joint filers and $250,000 for all other filers maintains proportionality when phasing on qualified income rather than a 20 percent (one fifth) deduction.  ↩