Wyden hopes to drop tax bill ‘soon’

“The point now is to show that we’ve got opportunities for colleagues to be part of what I think is the best opportunity to create jobs,” Wyden said. “A proven job creator that not only doesn’t add to the deficit but actually, based on the analyses that have been done, will bring in additional revenue because of payroll growth and job creation.”

The senator also said that he had been listening to suggestions from colleagues on what could be tweaked from measures introduced in the past, including requests to make sure that any funds created by tax reform go to job creation or deficit reduction instead of to other government spending. 

“I’m not wedded to that,” Wyden said about his collaboration with Gregg. “That’s what legislating is all about.”

The bill Wyden and Gregg introduced in 2010 would have, among other things, reduced the number of individual tax brackets to three (15, 25 and 35 percent) and reduced the top corporate tax rate to 24 percent. 

Wyden’s comments came at an event also attended by Rep. Patrick Tiberi (R-Ohio,) the chairman of a House Ways and Means subcommittee that deals with taxation; Dan Danner, the chief executive of the National Federation of Independent Business; and a pair of small-business owners. 

Tiberi and Wyden are among the lawmakers that have called for a comprehensive overhaul of the tax code, in part because many businesses actually pay taxes as individuals. The Obama administration has expressed interest in both individual and corporate tax reform, but has also signaled that it believes the corporate side could go first. 

At the Thursday news conference, Tiberi said he looked forward to working further across party lines to fix a tax code that he called “so broken.”

“We’re listening to job creators to try to figure out how to make our system better in a bipartisan, bicameral way,” the congressman said.