Income-Based Effective Tax Rates and Choice-of-Entity Considerations under the 2017 Tax Act

This article uses a simple simulation to graphically present the effective tax rates at various income levels for small businesses (those with taxable income of $1,000,000 or less) under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA) and compares them to effective tax rates at various income levels for small businesses prior to the TCJA. The graphical presentation reveals that the various tax rates under the TCJA complicate choice-of-entity analyses and undermine general rule-of-thumb concepts that drove choice-of-entity decisions prior to the TCJA. Under the TCJA, choice-of-entity preferences will likely be highly situational and may feature combinations of various entities. Using a typical business situation, this article illustrates how different types of entity can cause the effective tax rate on business income at the $1,000,000 level to vary from 21.36 to 34.60 percent. The most favorable effective rate results from an entity structure that combines a C corporation and passthrough entity. Rate variations based upon entity combinations portend subtle, carefully calculated, shifts in choice-of-entity actions following the TCJA.