The oft-maligned tax increase on the verge of becoming law

Sen. Joe Manchin, in an unlikely alliance with progressives, may get the last laugh on the tax cognoscenti.

Their new minimum tax on big corporations, now on the cusp of becoming law, was never taken very seriously by much of Washington’s tax world. Lobbyists, staffers, think tankers and others tended to look down on it as a third-rate proposal — too messy and complicated, with lots of unintended consequences, to actually make it into law.

Congress had already tried something like this before, in the 1980s, the critics noted, and dumped the idea after only a few years. Even some Biden administration tax honchos were not enamored with the plan.