Senate panel to start tax bill markup on Monday

The Senate Finance Committee will begin to mark up its tax proposal on Monday, Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced.

“This is just the start of the legislative process in the Senate,” Hatch said in a statement. “We expect robust committee debate on the policies in this bill, will have an open amendment process, and hope to report legislation by the end of the week.”

The Senate proposal, which Republicans unveiled Thursday, lowers the top individual and corporate tax rates and keeps some of the tax breaks that are eliminated in the House GOP tax bill.

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Unlike in the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee traditionally does not mark up legislative text. Instead it considers legislation written in plain English.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the plan would cost $1.496 trillion in lost federal revenue in its first 10 years. That’s just under the maximum $1.5 trillion in federal revenue that the bill is allowed to lose under the budget resolution that enables tax legislation to pass the Senate with a simple majority.

But tax and budget experts said the bill doesn’t look like it adheres to the “Byrd rule” that it also needs to meet in order to be approved on a party-line vote. Under the Byrd rule, the bill can’t add to the deficit after 10 years.

The Ways and Means Committee approved the House bill on Thursday, and that measure is expected to receive a vote on the House floor next week.