Following a number of reports that the Trump Administration will push for comprehensive reforms to the U.S. tax code, the American Trucking Association (ATA) released a public statement this week in support of the president, stating that the plan would help grow the economy and create jobs.
“While trucking sustains the vitality of the U.S. economy, we also carry a heavy tax burden, paying the highest corporate tax rate of any transportation mode,” ATA President Chris Spear said.
Spear continued, stating that hearing the president call out the benefits of tax reform for ATA’s members and the trucking industry underscored the need for the effort and that he urged Congress to work with the administration to reduce the rates that families and small businesses pay in taxes.
A number of ATA members joined Spear in publicly pushing for tax reform, including ATA Chairman and President of Jet Express, Inc., Kevin Burch, and H.R. Ewell Inc. President Calvin Ewell.
“Few industries are as connected to every facet of the American economy as trucking. From that vantage point, we can see clearly what the President’s tax reform plan would do to drive our economy,” Burch said.
Ewell said that passing tax reform would help him as an owner of a small family-owned business, by not only helping them add drivers and trucks but in allowing his business to stay in his family by eliminating the estate tax.
“Trucking is a low-single-digit-margin business, and family-owned companies aren’t flush with cash, but they have millions in capital tied up in trucks and facilities, so eliminating this tax will preserve our small family trucking businesses as a small family business,” Ewell said.