Among all the other junk in Democrats’ Build Back Better package is a giveaway to ambulance-chasers.
That’s right: a $2.5 billion handout to trial lawyers in the form of a new tax writeoff.
The IRS usually prohibits lawyers from deducting expenses from contingency-fee cases until they’re resolved, since they should get reimbursed if the case is won or settled. Only if the attorneys don’t get paid (as they risk by taking the case on contingency) because they lost the case can they write off their expenses.
But the House-passed bill lets the lawyers deduct the expenses whether or not they’ll be repaid. Per the Joint Committee on Taxation, this would cost taxpayers $2.5 billion over a decade.
Simply put, this is a public subsidy for contingency-fee cases, encouraging the trial bar to file even more dubious lawsuits. Sounds like another corrupt political ploy to funnel money to Democrats’ friends in the plaintiff’s bar.
How, exactly, is that about “building” anything except donations to the party that’s trying to sneak it through?