Congress Rushing To Finish Work On Tax Extenders Bill – MSCI Members Can Weigh In

House and Senate negotiators continued work last week on a bill that would extend more than 50 tax provisions that will expire at the end of this year unless Congress and the president pass and sign legislation to extend them. As MSCI’s partners at the S-Corp Association noted last week, negotiators are currently coalescing around a plan to extend some of the expiring provisions permanently, renew others for five years and extend the remaining provisions for just two years. Specifically, negotiators may:

• Make most business provisions permanent, including the research and development tax credit, small business expensing and the shorter built-in gains recognition period;
• Extend bonus depreciation, the production tax credit, the investment tax credit and the work opportunity tax credit for five years; and
• Extend all other provisions for just two years.

MSCI supports permanent extension of the business-related provisions in the bill. 

Negotiators are also considering whether to delay the Affordable Care Act excise tax on high-end employer-provided health insurance plans and the Affordable Care Act medical device tax for two years. MSCI supports these provisions as well. There is significant bipartisan support in both chambers to delay, or even repeal, both of the ACA tax provisions. Indeed, the Senate voted 90 to 10 last week for an amendment that would repeal the tax on high-end insurance plans. (President Barack Obama has said he would veto the bill to which that amendment was attached, so repeal has no chance of becoming law through that legislative vehicle.) 

As it currently stands, the tax extenders bill would reduce taxes by $800 billion over ten years. Lawmakers have not yet decided how they will offset the bill and that debate could be a serious barrier to passage of a final bill. 

MSCI’s partners at the National Association of Manufacturers have created an “action” page from which MSCI members can send a letter to their representatives and senators asking them to quickly pass tax extenders legislation. Click here to access that website and then click on the heading that says “Tell Washington that Manufacturers Need Pro-Growth Tax Provisions” to tell Congress to act quickly on a tax extenders bill.