A divided House Ways and Means Committee approved six bipartisan tax bills on April 29. The tax incentive measures, popularly known as tax extenders because they often lapse and are restored by Congress, were taken from a comprehensive tax reform package introduced by Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., earlier in the year.

Although Camp’s reform package was revenue neutral, these tax bills would not be offset by corresponding tax increases or spending cuts. Their provisions would be made permanent and end the costly uncertainty faced by businesses, Camp said.

Committee ranking member Rep. Sander M. Levin, D-Mich., and his fellow Democrats mostly voted against the measures. Levin said Republicans are being fiscally irresponsible to add $310 billion to the federal budget deficit by passing the bills without paying for them. They criticized GOP lawmakers for passing tax breaks for businesses and individuals, while refusing to consider legislation that would provide for an extension of federal unemployment compensation benefits for the nation’s jobless.

GOP lawmakers on the panel noted that President Obama recently told the nation that the economy has recovered all the jobs lost from the Great Recession that began in 2008. In addition, Camp recalled that Congress routinely passes these types of tax extender bills without providing revenue offsets. Camp told reporters that he is considering holding mark-ups on other tax legislation.

The committee approved the following domestic tax measures:

  • The American Research and Competitiveness Bill of 2014 (HR 4438),
  • A simplified version of a permanent research tax credit,
  • The America’s Small Business Tax Relief Bill (HR 4457), a bill to make Code Sec. 179 expensing permanent, and
  • A bill (HR 4453) providing a permanent recognition period for built-in gains of S corporations and a bill (HR 4454) setting permanent rules for basis adjustments for the stock of S corporations that make charitable contributions.

The committee approved the following international tax measures:

  • HR 4429, a bill to permanently extend the subpart F active financing exception, and
  • HR 4464, a bill setting a permanent look-through rule for payments between controlled foreign corporations.

Provided by CCH

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