Rep. Smith speaks to Texas County Farm Bureau

Rep. Jason Smith discussed his focus on farms, plans for tax reform and his work with President Donald Trump last week during a meeting with the Texas County Farm Bureau.

Smith spent the entire month of August visiting locally owned farms and agribusinesses across southeast and south central Missouri, many of whom were concerned about burdensome regulations and our country’s complicated tax code.

“Within the last year, I have had the honor of working with the Trump administration to repeal more than $36 billion dollars’ worth of Obama-era regulations,” said Smith. “One of our biggest successes was rescinding the Waters of the United States regulation, which sought to federally regulate every drop of water on Missouri farmers’ land.”

Smith, who spoke inside the community center at the Houston Area Chamber of Commerce Fairgrounds, also talked about his work on tax reform.

“As a member of the Ways and Means Committee, I am fighting for a fairer, flatter tax code that will allow families to run their small businesses without being taxed left and right by bureaucrats in Washington,” said Smith. 

“President Trump and Vice President (Mike) Pence are ready to see this happen. In fact, I had dinner with the Vice President just last week, and we talked about tax reform that makes America competitive again and gives hard working families across Missouri and the U.S. a long overdue pay raise.”

Small businesses create approximately half of all jobs in the United States; however, their tax rates are as high as 44.6 percent. Due to the complexities of the tax code, American businesses spend more than $147 billion dollars each year just to file their tax returns. 

“Instead of shops on Main Street spending what they make on hiring more employees and investing in expanding their business, they are forced to give their money to the government,” said Smith. “We need a tax code that rewards people for working hard, not one that punishes them.”

American taxpayers spend over 6 billion hours and $262 billion dollars a year to make sure they are in compliance with the U.S. tax code. 

“Not only are small businesses spending outrageous amounts of their time and money to figure out our tax code, but average Americans who are working hard every day and trying to raise a family have to spend money to figure it out too,” said Smith.

Smith is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, the only committee in Congress with primary jurisdiction over federal tax measures. On Aug. 30, Smith joined Trump in Springfield for his speech on tax reform.