By Jon H. Harsch
© Copyright Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 2 – As partisan wrangling continued on the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon over a Republican amendment to repeal the healthcare law, the Senate voted 81-17 to approve a Stabenow amendment to repeal the unpopular 1099 tax reporting provision.
Just before voting on the amendment by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., to repeal the 1099 requirement, the Senate voted 54-44 against an amendment offered by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. Like the Levin amendment, amendments from Sens. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., and Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., would repeal the 1099 requirement for reporting paying $600 or more per year. But unlike Levin, Johanns and Stabenow would leave it up to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to determine where to cut federal programs to offset the cost of the repeal.
Levin said there's “overwhelming bipartisan support for repeal of recent changes to the 1099 reporting requirement.” But he said it would be wrong to “abdicate Congress’ responsibility to decide on the spending of taxpayer dollars” and leave the $22 billion decision up to OMB in the executive branch. Levin's amendment specified tax law changes to cover the repeal's cost.
Levin said “If we cannot today exercise our responsibility on finding $22 billion to pay for the repeal of these reporting requirements, how can we expect to tackle the much larger budget deficit we face?”
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