Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) will file a bipartisan tax bill that has already passed the House as an amendment in the FAA Reauthorization Act, an effort to force a vote on the measure to boost child tax credits and reinstate major breaks for business investment.
The Federal Aviation Administration legislation is being seen as a last-ditch vehicle for lawmakers to tie their priorities to, and that includes the tax bill, which failed to take off in the Senate as a standalone bill and was never brought to a committee or floor vote. A spokesman for the Finance Committee confirmed that they will file the amendment next week.
The amendment will be to include the House-passed bill, although the spokesman said that Wyden’s offer to Senate Republicans to make changes to the bill remains on the table.
The bill in question, crafted between Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and Wyden, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, cleared the House with major bipartisan support in a 357-70 vote. It also has support from the White House.
The legislation enhances the child tax credit while restoring some major business tax provisions and would pay for it through changes to the pandemic-era employee retention credit.
But the legislation faced hurdles in the Senate, including skepticism from Republican senators over its enlargement of the child tax credit, and provisions that some conservatives have said would amount to an expansion of welfare and discourage work. Others have focused on the effects on the federal deficit.
Some senators, like Finance Committee ranking member Mike Crapo (R-ID), have raised concerns about how the legislation would allow parents to rely on the prior year’s income to calculate the child tax credit for this year and next. Outside conservative groups have argued that the provision would lead some parents to quit the workforce in some years.
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Because of the disunity within the Senate GOP, the legislation never ended up getting a vote. But Wyden is hoping that it could get passed by attaching it to the FAA reauthorization.
The bill is written so that its tax cuts expire in 2025, but if they were instead made permanent, it would cost $645 billion through 2033, according to an estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an outside group that advocates lower deficits.