Finance Committee Unveils Another Tax Extenders Taskforce Summary
The Senate Finance Committee last week announced the publication of a report by its Health Tax Policy Taskforce, which was assigned with looking at the impact of expiring health-related tax extenders. Including this report, there have been five such summaries published since a significant number of tax extenders expired in December 2018.
Chairman Chuck Grassley has been pushing for Congress to renew that expired extenders legislation, which the Senate Finance Committee points out was “more than 40 provisions.” One way that effort has manifested is in the creation of six bipartisan taskforces, each examining a specific area affected by what the committee calls “temporary tax policy:”
- Energy
- Cost Recovery
- Individual, Excise, and Other Expiring Policies
- Employment and Community Development
- Health
- Disaster Tax Relief
The Health Tax Policy Taskforce noted in the report that interviews were a key component of its methodology for determining the viability of each provision: “[We] received feedback from stakeholders, interested Senate offices, and other interested parties to examine the original basis of each provision, determine whether there continues to be a need for the provision as currently drafted, and identify long-term resolutions when possible.”
The report focuses on six health-related tax extenders that either have already expired or will soon expire. The stated goal of the taskforce was to determine the viability of these extenders, and they noted in the summary that they ultimately could not agree on a recommendation for these six provisions:
- Health Coverage Tax Credit
- Paid Family and Medical Leave Tax Credit
- Medical Expense Deduction – 7.5% AGI Floor
- Black Lung Disability Trust Fund Excise Tax Rate
- Medical Devise Excise Tax
- Health Insurance Tax
While the Health Tax Policy Taskforce was supposed to provide recommendations for each of these provisions, the reported noted that they were not able to “come to a consensus on the expiring provisions within its scope.”
