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A “tax Armageddon” is on its way—unless Congress and the White House stop it, NAM President and CEO Jay Timmons and Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) wrote in a Washington Examiner op-ed.

What’s going on: “[M]eaningful changes to the tax code made during the 2017 tax reforms will phase out by the end of 2025,” wrote Timmons and Rep. Buchanan, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Manufacturing Tax Team.   

• The manufacturing-critical provisions set to expire include immediate expensing of research and development costs, the Section 199A pass-through deduction and an accompanying increase in individual tax rates.

Why it’s important: If the reforms aren’t extended, “millions of Americans will face higher tax bills, and manufacturers will struggle to create jobs, increase wages and invest in their local communities.”

• Small businesses and middle-class Americans will have to fork over more of their paychecks to Washington, and “families will feel the pain of higher prices and diminished opportunity because they will be affected by the difficult choices businesses will have to make.”

What must be done: The House has introduced legislation that would make the pass-through deduction permanent, but it and the Senate must do more, Timmons and Rep. Buchanan wrote.

• In addition to preserving the pass-through deduction and reinstating immediate R&D expensing, Congress must preserve the corporate tax rate, which the 2017 tax reforms lowered to 21% from 35%.

The last word: Manufacturers and the U.S. need “a tax code that allows the people who make things in America to do what they do best: compete and win at home and abroad.”