Business Community Opposes Tax Hike
Following yesterday’s comments by President Obama, the S Corporation Association joined together with more than 30 other business associations to make the case for action by Congress to avoid the massive tax hike on private enterprise looming next year. As the letter states:
Main Street businesses are America’s job creators. They are responsible for 60 percent of the net new jobs created in the last decade. But uncertainty about the economy and looming tax hikes have kept this sector from hiring new workers, resulting in a weak economic recovery and slow to nonexistent job growth. Until Main Street begins to …
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Baucus III
The tax community is still waiting for the third version of the Baucus substitute to be released. A “trial balloon” draft circulated yesterday made certain changes, but failed to address many of the sticking points holding up the overall bill.
Meanwhile, Senators Baucus and Reid spent most of yesterday negotiating with swing Republican votes — at this point, just Maine Republican Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — to identify what changes are necessary in order to gain the 59th and 60th votes needed. As CongressDaily reports:
The chief target appears to be $24 billion to extend higher Medicaid matching funds …
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Latest On Extenders and the Payroll Tax
So the Senate just adopted a stand-alone, six month Doc Fix. Adoption of this provision sends a couple signals for the broader extender package.
This action follows on last night’s failed 56-40 cloture vote on Baucus II. While this vote represented a significant improvement over the 45 votes in support of Baucus I, it still signaled to the Senate (and House for that matter) that the extenders plus package was not going to be completed this week. Hence the need for the stand-alone Doc Fix. Moreover, the adoption of this very large — and ultimately offset — spending item suggests that …
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Baucus Substitute, Part II
After falling 15 votes shy of the 60 needed to close debate and move forward on the “extender plus” package, Finance Chairman Max Baucus offered up a second substitute last evening and Senator Reid immediately filed a cloture motion to end debate. That motion requires 60 votes and the vote would take place on Friday.
The new Baucus substitute is “slimmer” than the previous effort and apparently was designed to mirror the deficit impact of the House-passed bill. As such, its goal is not only to attract 60 votes in the Senate, but also to pass the House as well. As …
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