House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) on Monday released a revised version of his year-end tax package, a move aimed at securing enough House GOP votes for passage.
The new version of the bill, which is 253 pages, adds several Republican priorities, including provisions that would delay and repeal taxes created under ObamaCare, ease restrictions on political activity by churches and other nonprofits and allow unborn children to be the beneficiaries of 529 education savings accounts.
{mosads}The revamped measure removes provisions that would renew a host of expired tax breaks, known as “tax extenders.” It retains portions of the original bill that focus on disaster tax relief, retirement savings, IRS improvements and corrections to the 2017 GOP tax law.
Brady released the original version late last month. It had been expected to get a vote the week after Thanksgiving but ultimately was left off the schedule, a sign that it didn’t have the votes to pass.
While the original bill didn’t contain some of the more partisan provisions in the new version, Democrats opposed the initial package because of its cost and because they weren’t involved in drafting the measure. Some Republicans weren’t in Washington when the bill was expected to receive a vote, and GOP lawmakers sought to get their priorities included in the legislation.
Brady said he’d defer to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the timing of any vote on the revised bill, but said the new version reflects improvements made after listening to lawmakers.
He said that “adding a couple of provisions that are important to the Republican House, I think, is appropriate” and that the Senate could eliminate any provisions that lack bipartisan support. He also noted that Democrats have supported delays to ObamaCare taxes in the past.
Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, criticized the new bill, saying it contained “an array of holiday gifts for Republican interests.” He said it looks like Brady is effectively “putting up a white flag of surrender” on tax policy for the year.
Brady said he removed tax extenders from the package because those provisions will now move on a “separate track.” Congress often renews the extenders for one or two years on a bipartisan basis at the end of a calendar year.
“We’re looking for signals from the Senate, both from the Republicans and the Democrats, on the extender package,” he said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who is expected to lead the Finance Committee next year, said that any year-end tax action would have to be added to a government funding bill.
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the revised bill would cost about $80 billion over 10 years, with most of the revenue loss stemming from the delayed ObamaCare taxes, Brady said.
Updated at 6:01 p.m.