Tax Season Hurts a Little Less

The issue of higher costs continues to be a major theme in conversations.

During the Biden-Harris Administration, I spoke with many Ninth District residents who voiced their concerns with the U.S. economy.

Despite Democratic officials’ insistence that our economy was doing fine, many in the country felt differently.

Accordingly, in 2024, the American people elected a Republican trifecta in part to fix inflation, stimulate the economy and grow your pocketbooks.

I agree that Congress needs to do more to help lower costs. Our progress in accomplishing this goal should come into focus as Americans prepare for the tax filing season.

Monday, January 26, 2026, marks the first day of the tax filing season. From then until Wednesday, April 15, 2026, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will collect approximately 164 million individual tax returns!

For many Ninth District families, organizing W-2, 1099 and other tax forms can be a stressful and frustrating process.

While filing taxes is no fun, it is worth highlighting the pro-growth tax provisions that Congress passed last year and that President Trump signed into law.

I worked with Republicans to put together a reconciliation package, now called the “Working Families Tax Cuts,” to help stimulate growth, strengthen our economy and provide tax relief to all people, including working families.

Democrats claim this bill only benefits big businesses and the very wealthy.

But let’s examine some of the provisions to see who actually benefits from the “Working Families Tax Cuts.”

A signature provision in the reconciliation package is the permanent extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

The TCJA provisions were set to expire at the end of 2025. If Congress did not act, American families would have seen dramatic tax increases.

Many families filing their taxes would have seen their standard deduction slashed from $30,000 to $16,000. This would have forced those families to pay even more in taxes.

I voted to stop this harmful tax hike!

Other essential working class-friendly provisions include no taxes on tips and no taxes on hourly overtime.

This brand new policy is bound to reward our restaurant servers, manufacturing workers and other blue-collar laborers by letting them keep more of their hard-earned money.

Republicans also delivered a “senior bonus”, where those who collect social security retirement can claim an additional $6,000 deduction.

The reconciliation bill not only provides tax help for working people, but for businesses and communities as well.

Republicans restored 100% bonus depreciation. This allows businesses to take an accelerated full depreciation in the year they purchase new equipment. This gives businesses more purchasing power in the present as opposed to waiting a few more years before they justify a purchase.

Accelerated depreciation helps all businesses. And yes, even big businesses.

But big businesses can shift assets around and cover the cost of a slower depreciation schedule. Small businesses often have cash flow issues and the ability to take the cost of the equipment off their income taxes more quickly is a big advantage.

Further, rural businesses and communities are especially primed to capitalize thanks to the permanent extension of Opportunity Zones.

Also created in 2017, the bipartisan Opportunity Zone policy incentivizes investments in economically distressed regions of the country.

It is a win-win policy, where investors receive boosted tax incentives and local communities become engines for renewed economic activity and increased job opportunity.

In the reconciliation package, we sweetened the tax benefits for Opportunity Zones in rural regions. The investment threshold for improving a facility is reduced and the capital gains placed into rural investments are subject to a tax discount at a rate triple non-rural investments.

As Opportunity Zone eligibility and maps are determined ahead of 2027, I look forward to the economic prospects that Opportunity Zones bring to Virginia’s rural communities.

We are already seeing our rural communities take advantage of tax policies that we promoted in the reconciliation package.

The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC), which the reconciliation bill permanently extended, was recently credited for helping begin construction of a new medical office building in Tazewell, Virginia!

I believe that more community success stories will follow in rural Virginia thanks in part to the tax provisions that Republicans advanced in the reconciliation package.

Despite misleading claims, the reconciliation package tax policies are pro-small business, pro-rural, pro-working class and pro-growth!

As Republicans continue to work to rectify the inflation disaster created by the Biden-Harris economy, I am determined to promote policies that strengthen your financial prospects, boost your economic freedoms and protect you from harmful tax increases.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office.  You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at https://morgangriffith.house.gov/.