Only three weeks into his second term, President Donald Trump is moving full steam ahead with his agenda.
He won a mandate to bring wholesale transformation to government, and he’s already delivering. This involves transforming the Federal government so it does far more with far less and creating efficiencies in slow, bureaucratic systems so they serve the people not the system.
And one area that desperately needs this improvement is the tax system! A system that has been a burden on working Americans can be completely transformed so that instead it works for working families.
Whether it’s the “no tax on tips” policy pioneered by President Trump or the $5,000 child tax credit proposed by Sen. Vance, the Trump-Vance administration will ensure the tax code works for working-families.
A key part of this will be building on and expanding the successful work of the 2017 Trump tax cut (the Tax Credits and Jobs Act). There will be many different dimensions of this innovation, but two I want to focus on are tax simplification and service rejuvenation.
We need to innovate through tax simplification so our tax code works for all Americans and rejuvenate government agencies so they put Americans, not bureaucracy, first.
Innovation was at the core of the TCJA, including through the expanded standard deduction and the doubling of the child tax credit to $2,000. This enabled many more American families to file simpler returns and keep more of their hard-earned money. We need to build on this innovation and the success of the TCJA as we look towards the future.
For this to succeed, first, innovation should involve further tax simplification, including for working families. According to a recent poll, 75% of all Americans think the next President and Congress “should prioritize doing more than just extending existing tax cuts by further simplifying taxes for Americans.” Tax simplification is also an issue Americans of both parties agree on; 84% of Republicans and 80% of Democrats agreed with the above statement. This is a vital moment to strengthen American working families, including through a stronger Child Tax Credit.
Tax simplification also includes making it simpler and less time consuming to file taxes and deal with tax issues. In the same poll, 71% of Americans (including 73% of Republicans and 78% of Democrats) wanted “a simple and free way of filing taxes directly with the IRS.” You don’t need to be a “tax expert” to know it should be easier for American families to file their taxes than for companies to send American jobs overseas!
American families should not have to spend hours dealing with tax forms or pay hundreds of dollars, or both, every year. Tax simplification doesn’t just save Americans money, it saves Americans time — and we could all use some more time in today’s pressured world.
Tax simplification is also particularly important for working families who are eligible for tax credits. Government needs to provide simple and straightforward ways of understanding eligibility for these credits. This should include technology and tools, in plain English, that could help working families understand who is eligible for these credits and how to claim them. Again, this is supported by a significant majority of Americans, with 71% finding proposals like this helpful to them (including 74% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats).
This brings us on to the second pillar of innovation: rejuvenation of government agencies so they actually serve ordinary Americans. Too often our current government ignores the third part of Lincoln’s famous phrase at Gettysburg: government for the people.
We should be thinking about how all government agencies, particularly those which deal directly with citizens — who are after all their “customers” — provide high quality service. This would underscore the Framer’s lodestar, their belief that good government is government that serves its citizens — not the other way around — a reminder that we Americans are citizens not subjects.
Government can learn a lot here from business, that high quality customer service is a must. We need to remember government inefficiency is a tax on time. We need to think about how we re-imagine government services so that they are delivered more cheaply, saving taxpayers money, but also delivered more simply, saving taxpayers time. It’s why the work of DOGE is so important.
To be clear, a lot of this comes down to priority; it’s not a question of more funding — it’s a question of government using existing taxpayer dollars to actually help and serve taxpayers. For example, it could mean the IRS spending less on enforcement and more on customer service, less on audits of low income taxpayers and more on assistance for them by providing the tools and technology that make filing simpler and free.
We need a government that puts its citizens, not its bureaucrats, first. Because a government that puts Americans first is a government that puts America first.
Ja’Ron Smith was the highest and longest ranking African American advisor in the first Trump Administration, serving in a number of roles. Most recently, he had served as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the White House Office of American Innovation.
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