NEWS | NSBA Supports Advancement of Tax Bill for Small Business

The tax piece of the "one big, beautiful bill" pie is making its way from the Ways and Means to the Budget committee for final assembly and passage in the pending reconciliation package.

MAY 22, 8:30AM | After meeting for more than 19 hours, this morning, the House passed its portion of the reconciliation procedural vehicle from the Rules Committee Panel.

Containing expansions and permanencies for NSBA Priority Issues, including QBI and 199A deductions, the House voted 215-214 for passage. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) joined Democrats in opposing the bill. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) voted present.

Just when he thought he said all he could say, as part of his concessions, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) agreed to an increased state-and-local tax deduction, an accelerated start to new Medicaid work requirements, and a faster phase-out of clean-energy tax credits to garner the necessary support in the House. The changes were added in an amendment posted Wednesday night.

With this high victory in the House, there is a mounting hurdle in the Senate, where it is expected more revisions will be made. This means Johnson will be on deck again to manage passage of the package later this summer when the tweaked bill is sent back to the South end of the Capitol.

Follow NSBA as we continue not sleeping to track progress of this bill.

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MAY 21, 7:01AM | Six hours in as of this morning, the House Rules Committee convened at 1:00am overnight to begin debating the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, teeing up a full floor vote for final passage as soon as today.

House Republicans approved a rule yesterday providing Members same-day authority to fast-track the reconciliation bill to a vote as soon as it makes it out of the Rules Committee.

The Rules Committee panel is reportedly still debating the bill, with Democrats pushing back against what they are describing as tax breaks to the ultra wealthy at the expense of the working class, cutting Medicaid and other social safety net programs.

The Rules Committee panel has yet to hear from Members of the House Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means committees, which crafted the most debated portions of the bill.

Leading up to the Rules hearing, Democrats filed over 500 amendments to the bill.

According to Bloomberg, “Republican leaders are expected to release a manager’s amendment to change the bill in the Rules Committee after negotiations with holdouts, including a new SALT figure and the acceleration of the start date for new Medicaid work requirements.”

Follow NSBA as we continue tracking updates on this important legislation containing action and advancement for our top two Priority Issues - expansions and permanencies for QBI and 199A deductions - vital provisions for America’s most important economic community: Small Business.

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MAY 20, 8:00PM | Ahead of Wednesday’s 1:00am expected vote in the House Rules Committee, President Trump is reportedly set to travel to Capitol Hill to meet with and unite lawmakers to fulfill his plans for passage of “one big, beautiful bill,” including legislation to extend critical tax provisions that are NSBA Priority Issues.

While there is preliminary consent on passage of the bill as indicated by a re-vote and passage in the House Budget Committee over the weekend, the full Republican majority is small, and, amidst fluttering GOP uncertainty in the Lower Chamber, there is already chatter in the Senate on plans to split the package into several pieces.

Senators say splitting the multi-title reconciliation package into pieces may offer solutions to better account for procedural requirements and consensus constraints among Members. Similar to reasons for hold ups in the Lower Chamber, several Senate Republicans said they oppose proposed cuts to Medicaid, and a growing contingency of fiscal conservatives said the current House legislation does not go far enough to cut the nation’s multi-trillion dollar deficit.

The House set a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline for securing passage of the legislation. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) insists the bill is still on track for passage on this ambitious timeline; however, a group of Senate Republicans said it is growing increasingly doubtful about this prospect.

Follow NSBA as we continue tracking passage of our Priority Issues, including critical extension and expansion of QBI and 199A deductions.

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MAY 19, 7:30AM | The House Committee on Rules is set to meet on Wednesday, May 21 at 1:00AM EDT to consider the working “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” according to a statement.

Follow NSBA as we continue tracking this bill and the road ahead for reconciliation.

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MAY 19 | Last night, the House Budget Committee approved its part of President Trump's “one big, beautiful bill,” after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) convinced Republican opponents to vote for the assembled titles, including a tax bill with action for NSBA Priority Issues. Changes that secured passage of the package remain pending and may still be in flux.

After finding passage following a failed vote earlier this week, 17 Republicans voted for the bill, 16 Democrats against, and GOP Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Andrew Clyde (Ga.) and Josh Brecheen (Okla.) voted present after voting "no" on Friday.

The legislation will still need to favorably pass through the House Rules Committee and again on the House floor before the entire Lower Chamber, where Republicans have a thin majority.

If successful, the package will be in for a fight to pass favorably through Senate, where Upper Chamber Republicans are waiting to push and work their own legislative fixes.

A potentially winding road ahead in this reconciliation process, NSBA urges Congress to remember Small Business and necessary, common sense expansions to critical tax provisions driving the nation’s economy, including QBI and Section 199A deductions.

Send a message to the Senate to preserve these provisions as passed by House Ways & Means, and join NSBA as we continue following this legislation in our efforts to ensure America’s most important economic community.

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MAY 18, 11:15AM | This evening, the House Budget Committee is reportedly due to reconsider the taxation-and-spending package it rejected Friday.

Follow NSBA for the latest.

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MAY 16, 5:40PM | The House Budget Committee is reportedly planning to try again for passage of the assembled Committee title pieces on Sunday night to advance the GOP’s target, single reconciliation package.

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MAY 16 | After the House Ways and Means Committee advanced NSBA’s top Priority Issues in its tax title earlier this week, this afternoon, the House Budget Committee failed to pass the larger assembled legislative package. Four Republicans, Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) and Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.) sank the bill, standing hard by priorities for more aggressive spending cuts, particularly to Medicaid.

Follow NSBA as we continue tracking the latest updates on this reconciliation package from Capitol Hill. Join us in urging lawmakers to remember Small-Business Priority Issues, including the important QBI and 199A deduction expansions passed as part of the tax title, as the Committees once again return to the drawing board for their title legislation.

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MAY 14 | Early this morning, the House Ways and Means Committee advanced a number of President Trump’s top tax priorities as part of a portion of provisions to be combined to form a larger, pending legislative package.

Passed as the specific tax piece to this bigger bill as part of a process known as ‘reconciliation,’ the Ways and Means panel advanced the legislation along a Republican party-line vote of 26-19.

The tax bill now heads to the House Budget Committee, which is tasked with combining the individual pieces into one legislative package to advance for consideration and vote with all Members of Congress.

The 389-page tax bill includes permanency for provisions originally passed through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). If passed by the full Congress, this legislation would enable the majority of small businesses to continue benefitting from lower individual tax rates—similar to how large corporations were originally treated in the initial bill. The language passed by Ways and Means also crucially increases Qualified Business Income (QBI) deductions to 23 percent under Section 199A - up from its current rate of 20 percent.

RELATED | NSBA Members Ratify Priority Issues for 119th Congress

This week, ahead of the tax panel’s vote, NSBA sent a letter of support to the Ways and Means Committee on its latest tax title:

"QBI and Section 199A deductions are the two, single, largest priority issues for the small-business community, as voted on by NSBA membership as part of our biennial Small Business Congress hosted in Feb. 2025, and we are grateful to Chairman Smith and the Committee for delivering these massive victories for Small Business," NSBA President and CEO Todd McCracken shared ahead of passage this week. "Together, these measures would ensure small businesses do not bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden compared to their larger counterparts, providing long-term certainty for Main Street entrepreneurs. NSBA urges the full Ways and Means Committee to support this title and continue working to empower the U.S. small-business sector." 

Read our full letter here and below, and follow NSBA as we continue advocating for inclusion of these important provisions to support America’s most important economic community – small business.

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May 2025

The Honorable Jason Smith

Chairman

House Committee on Ways and Means

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable Richard E. Neal

Ranking Member

House Committee on Ways and Means

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Neal:

On behalf of the National Small Business Association (NSBA)—the nation’s oldest small

business advocacy organization, representing our membership of more than 65,000 and the

millions of owners and employees that comprise the U.S. small business sector—I am writing to

express our support for the recently-released pre-mark draft of the Ways and Means Title

providing for reconciliation pursuant to H.Con.Res.14, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget

for Fiscal Year 2025.

Small companies are a big business. According to data from the Small Business Administration,

99.9% of all firms in the United States are small businesses. These companies employ nearly

half of all private sector workers and make up more than 43 percent of U.S. gross domestic

product (GDP).1 However, despite these massive figures, small businesses are significantly

more fragile than their large counterparts. Ostensibly small changes in taxes, regulations,

capital markets, labor markets, or the economy more broadly can drive thousands of

entrepreneurs to the brink of collapse.

Currently, thanks to the provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), small businesses

do not bear a disproportionate share of the tax burden relative to large companies. The vast

majority of small businesses operate as pass-through entities, meaning that their income is

taxed at the individual level by their owners. Recognizing this, in drafting the TCJA, Congress

reduced small business taxes in two fundamental ways: lowering the income tax rates paid by

individual filers, and critically, allowing deductibility of up to 20 percent of Qualified Business

Income (QBI) earned via common pass-throughs under Section 199A. Taken together, these

provisions are the primary bulwark small businesses have against unfair taxes. Unfortunately,

while the TCJA recognized the importance of these provisions to main street businesses, it

neglected to make them permanent, meaning that America’s smallest businesses would have to

come back to Congress to keep their taxes from rising unfairly.

The recent pre-mark draft of the Ways and Means reconciliation title addresses this inequity,

making permanent both of these key provisions small companies have come to rely on, and

moreover increasing the value of the 199A QBI deduction for entrepreneurs.

I urge the Committee to support this draft of the Ways and Means Title, as well as other

legislative efforts that would reduce financial and administrative barriers to Main Street

competitiveness.

Thank you for your continued leadership in fostering an environment where small businesses

can operate, invest, and grow, and look I forward to continuing to work with you as a partner in

supporting the U.S. small business sector.

Sincerely,

Todd McCracken

President & CEO

National Small Business Association

cc: The Honorable Vern Buchanan

The Honorable Adrian Smith

The Honorable Mike Kelly

The Honorable David Schweikert

The Honorable Darin LaHood

The Honorable Jodey Arrington

The Honorable Ron Estes

The Honorable Lloyd Smucker

The Honorable Kevin Hern

The Honorable Carol Miller

The Honorable Greg Murphy

The Honorable David Kustoff

The Honorable Brian Fitzpatrick

The Honorable Greg Steube

The Honorable Claudia Tenney

The Honorable Michelle Fischbach

The Honorable Blake Moore

The Honorable Beth Van Duyne

The Honorable Randy Feenstra

The Honorable Nicole Malliotakis

The Honorable Mike Carey

The Honorable Rudy Yakym

The Honorable Max Miller

The Honorable Aaron Bean

The Honorable Nathaniel Moran

The Honorable Lloyd Doggett

The Honorable Mike Thompson

The Honorable John Larson

The Honorable Danny Davis

The Honorable Linda Sánchez

The Honorable Terri Sewell

The Honorable Suzan DelBene

The Honorable Judy Chu

The Honorable Gwen Moore

The Honorable Brendan Boyle

The Honorable Donald Beyer

The Honorable Dwight Evans

The Honorable Bradley Schneider

The Honorable Jimmy Panetta

The Honorable Jimmy Gomez

The Honorable Steven Horsford

The Honorable Stacey Plaskett

The Honorable Tom Suozzi