On December 20, 2017, both the House and Senate passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The bill, which was previously passed by both chambers in different versions, was consolidated into a single bill by a conference committee to work out the differences between the chambers’ respective bills. President Trump signed the bill on December 22, 2017.
The long-awaited tax bill was heavily negotiated by Republican lawmakers over the past few weeks and contains significant changes to the individual income, corporate, business and estate tax regimes. The original bill that passed the House doubled the estate tax exemption from $5.6 million for individuals in 2018 ($11.2 million for married couples) to $11.2 million for individuals ($22.4 million for married couples), with a full repeal scheduled to take effect in 2025. The original Senate bill called for a doubling of the estate tax exemption without any full repeal. The final bill that passed both chambers doubles the exemption for years 2018 to 2025, followed by a drop back to current exemption levels in 2026. There will be no repeal of the estate tax and the exemption will continue to be indexed for inflation. The final change to revert back to current levels in 2026 was made to satisfy Senate parliamentary restrictions to ensure that the overall tax bill fell within budgetary limitations, in order to pass the bill by a simple majority.
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