House Republicans voted Thursday to advance their tax reform bill out of the Ways and Means Committee, setting up a vote on the House floor next week on the first major rewrite of the tax code in more than 30 years.
“Americans deserve a new tax code for a new era of property, and today we deliver,” said Ways and Means Committee chairman Kevin Brady on the conclusion of the four-day markup of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The committee approved the bill in a party-line 24-16 vote.
The committee approved the bill shortly after adopting a Republican amendment to impose significant changes to limit the net tax cut to $1.5 trillion over 10 years. That language put back in a provision to keep the adoption tax credit and a tax sweetener for small businesses, among other changes.
Brady said following the vote that he had an official score, not yet released, showing that the amended bill was “well within” the $1.5 trillion constraint.
The committee passed the House version of the bill just as Senate Republicans began rolling out their own measure. Republicans hope to put legislation on President Trump’s desk by the end of the year.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders called the committee passage an “important step” toward the president’s stated goals of cutting taxes for the middle-class and lowering business tax rates.
“There is still much to do, but the administration remains confident that, through continued cooperation with Congress, we will achieve these priorities this year,” Sanders said.
“Today, we took yet another critical step toward delivering real relief to the American people,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan.
During the mark-up, Republicans swatted away all Democratic amendments, most of which were aimed at exposing unpopular aspects of the bill, such as eliminating deductions used by middle-class families.
“The more the American people learn about the Republican tax bill, the more they will reject it, just as every Democrat did today on the Committee on Ways and Means,” said Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, a senior Democrat on the panel.
Only two amendments were adopted. The first came from Brady Monday night, and significantly scaled back a measure meant to prevent multinationals from shifting taxable income into tax havens.
Because that amendment lost enough revenue to push the total tax cut over $1.5 trillion, Republicans were forced to raise revenue elsewhere. After Republicans worked Wednesday night and Thursday morning on a second amendment, Brady introduced a second amendment early Thursday afternoon that the committee quickly passed before advancing the total package. One way the amendment would raise revenues would be to increase the one-time tax rates imposed on the estimated $2.6 trillion in earnings held by corporations overseas.
The amendment also included a special new low tax rate for small businesses, a change that proved critical in earning support from the National Federation of Independent Business, a key small-business group.
Now, the hastily amended bill will receive scrutiny from outside groups and members of the House of Representatives not on the committee. The legislation could be revised before heading to the House floor.
“Our next steps will be to fully engage other members of the House of Representatives,” said Peter Roskam, R-Ill., the chairman of the tax subcommittee. “But there is a spring in our step as we think about this great debate.”
