Lawmakers pressing to finish work on 1099 repeal

“After nearly a year of discussing, debating and voting, we have the opportunity to finally prevent small businesses from being buried under a job-crushing avalanche of new 1099 tax reporting requirements,” Camp said in a statement. 

Although Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday that he prefers the pay-for included in the House version of a 1099 repeal, it’s uncertain whether Senate Democrats will back Reid. 

“The 1099 is something we’re going to look at,” Reid told reporters Tuesday. “Me, personally, I like the House pay-for better than ours, so we’ll have to see.”

Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) said Wednesday that President Obama should sign a 1099 repeal measure even it includes the controversial offset. 

“I don’t think the president will waste his time vetoing a bill on which the House has already spoken so clearly,” he told reporters. 

“There are fights that it pays to make and there are fights that it doesn’t.”

The debate isn’t whether to repeal the provision included in the healthcare law, which requires businesses to file 1099 forms to the IRS for any vendor purchases of $600 or more, but how to pay for it. 

The Obama administration and some House Democrats have expressed strong support to repeal the 1099 provision but have expressed concern about how the cost of the measure is offset in House and Senate legislation. 

“The administration strongly opposes the House’s offset to pay for this repeal, which would undo an improvement enacted with nearly unanimous support in the Medicare and Medicaid Extenders Act that eliminated an egregious “cliff” in the tax system affecting middle income taxpayers,” according to a recent Statement of Administration Policy.

The administration also said that the Senate’s version, included in the Senate-passed Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization, which pays for the repeal “with an unspecified rescission of $44 billion that, in combination with other proposals currently under consideration in Congress, could cause serious disruption in a wide range of services provided by the federal government.”

On March 3, the House passed a 1099 repeal measure that requires taxpayers who receive federal health insurance subsidies to reimburse the IRS with substantial penalties if they earn more than expected, even after initially qualifying for the subsidy. 

House Democrats have called the offset a $25 billion tax increase on the middle class and said it would ensnare taxpayers who straddle the 400 percent income line, arguing that a pay increase such as a year-end bonus could push taxpayers “over the cliff” requiring those taxpayers to repay thousands of dollars. 

Last week, House Ways and Means ranking member Sander Levin (D-Mich.) said the move could leave nearly 300,000 uninsured because those who are on the line would fear taking the subsidy to get healthcare and then being required to pay it back. 

Camp and House Republicans have argued that those taxpayers who exceed the income levels shouldn’t receive the subsidy in the first place and should pay it back. 

They also have argued they it’s the same pay-for offered by Democrats last year to cover the “doc fix.” 

Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), one of the leaders of the 1099 repeal effort in the Senate, has introduced a bill that is identical to the House-passed legislation.