House passes year-end tax package

The House passed a year-end tax package on Thursday that addresses several Republican priorities, in one of the GOP’s last acts as the majority party in the lower chamber.

The bill passed on a vote of 220-183. Three Republicans — Reps. Justin Amash (Mich.), Todd Rokita (Ind.) and Mark Sanford (S.C.) — joined with Democrats in voting against the bill.

The Senate is not expected to take up the measure before wrapping up its work for the year.

{mosads}The bill includes provisions on a number of different tax-related issues: disaster tax relief; the delay and repeal of some ObamaCare taxes; technical fixes to the 2017 GOP tax-cut law; incentives to save for retirement; improvements to the IRS; and repeal of the ban on nonprofits endorsing political candidates known as the Johnson Amendment.

The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the legislation would lower federal revenue by almost $100 billion over 10 years.

The initial version of the package was released shortly after Thanksgiving, but it was revised several times over the past few weeks, as House Republicans worked to secure enough votes from their members to pass it.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) drafted the original version with the aim of garnering bipartisan support by including the extension of a host of expired tax breaks known as “tax extenders.” His initial bill did not include some of the more partisan provisions, like the Johnson Amendment repeal, that made it in the final package.

But Democrats opposed even the initial version of the bill because they were not involved in drafting it, there were no hearings on it, and it would add to the federal deficit. House GOP leaders also faced challenges in getting enough Republican votes for that version, due to absences and GOP lawmakers seeking to get their priorities included in it.

The final House-passed version largely removed provisions on tax extenders, with Brady saying those components would move on a different path, and added provisions on GOP lawmakers’ wish lists.

Brady said on the House floor Thursday that the bill has “key, timely components, each of which will help our economy continue moving in the right direction and provide help to families and communities damaged by disaster.”

Democrats furthered their attacks on the process and the substance of the bill. The top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal (Mass.), said Democrats want to address some of the issues tackled in the bill and will plan to hold hearings next year as part of that effort.

“There are many items in here that we fully approve of, but we disagree with the approach that’s being taken and we disagree with many of the substantive matters that are being offered,” he said.

Updated at 6:46 p.m.