Let's run up the dept somemore....

Lawmakers strike agreement on last-minute tax package

The deal would extend numerous tax breaks.

By BRIAN FALER

Lawmakers early Tuesday unveiled a last-minute tax plan that would revive a hodgepodge of benefits known as extenders, kill a controversial church parking levy and offer tax breaks to disaster victims.

They aim to piggyback the relatively narrow agreement on must-pass legislation needed to fund federal agencies beyond this week.

House Democrats plan to take up the proposal on Tuesday. The tax plan was unveiled early in the morning as the House’s Rules committee considered the ground rules for debating the budget measure.

The legislation would extend certain tax breaks, including many that died back in 2017, through 2020. Credits for biodiesel and short-line railroads would run through 2022, under the plan. It would also rescind a controversial tax created as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that imposed a new tax on fringe benefits that churches and other nonprofits provide their employees.

The legislation would also extend temporary cuts in alcohol taxes made as part of the TCJA, as well as continue a new break that law created for companies that offer their workers paid family leave. And it would also offer people hit by natural disasters various tax breaks, such as making it easier for them to tap funds in retirement accounts.

Those changes would come in addition to plans announced on Monday to repeal a trio of taxes undergirding the Affordable Care Act; raise the age at which people must take mandatory distributions from individual retirement accounts to 72 from 70.5; and address a glitch in the 2017 tax overhaul that resulted in higher taxes on some survivors of military veterans.

The plan comes after days of closed-door negotiations between the White House, Senate Republicans and House Democrats in which the three sides often struggled to find agreement. They had considered and ultimately rejected much more sweeping proposals to expand breaks for low-income people and clean up more snafus in the TCJA.

The plan would cap what has been an unusually slow year for taxes on Capitol Hill. Just one tax bill so far this year has been signed into law — in July, President Trump inked an uncontroversial measure making various changes in IRS procedures.