[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 8171 Introduced in House (IH)]

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116th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                H. R. 8171

To nullify certain executive actions to permit the delayed withholding 
                     and deposit of payroll taxes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 4, 2020

   Mr. Larson of Connecticut (for himself, Mr. Neal, Mr. Thompson of 
   California, Mr. Suozzi, Mr. Beyer, Ms. Moore, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. 
 Panetta, Mr. Horsford, Ms. Sanchez, Mr. Pascrell, Mr. Higgins of New 
   York, Mr. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Mr. Evans, Mr. Kildee, Ms. 
 DelBene, Mr. Kind, Mr. Courtney, Ms. DeLauro, Mr. Himes, Mrs. Hayes, 
  and Ms. Sewell of Alabama) introduced the following bill; which was 
              referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To nullify certain executive actions to permit the delayed withholding 
                     and deposit of payroll taxes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS.

    (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Save our Social 
Security Now Act''.
    (b) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
            (1) Social Security is Americans' commitment to each other; 
        it is the foundation of retirement security and provides nearly 
        all workers and their families with essential insurance 
        protections for retirement, disability, or death of a family 
        breadwinner.
            (2) Americans are relying on Social Security more than ever 
        during the COVID-19 pandemic which is harming the very 
        Americans who most rely on Social Security, our seniors, people 
        with disabilities, women and people of color.
            (3) Americans have consistently ranked Social Security as 
        one of the most important Federal programs.
            (4) Social Security enjoys deep and sustained public 
        support because it is a benefit workers earn through their 
        payroll contributions with each and every paycheck under the 
        Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA).
            (5) 65 million people, or nearly 1 in 3 households, receive 
        their earned Social Security benefits each month, including 
        seniors, widows, people with disabilities, children, and 
        veterans.
            (6) Social Security's progressive benefit formula, family 
        benefits, and disability and survivor protections make the 
        program especially important to communities of color and to 
        women, as it partially mitigates the systemic inequalities in 
        the rest of the retirement system, which mirror systemic 
        inequalities in the labor market.
            (7) Social Security's guaranteed benefits lift 22 million 
        Americans out of poverty each year, and allow millions more to 
        live with dignity after their retirement or disability.
            (8) Social Security pays $1 trillion in benefits each year, 
        and beneficiaries return those funds to their local economies 
        in every Congressional District in the nation when they pay for 
        their homes, groceries, and medical care.
            (9) Social Security functions as an automatic stabilizer 
        and economic stimulus during recessions, and the current 
        economic and public health crises make the program's role more 
        important than ever, as beneficiaries can count on its monthly 
        payments as a reliable source of income.
            (10) At its inception 85 years ago, Social Security was 
        created by President Roosevelt as an earned benefit program 
        where workers' benefits are fundamentally linked to their 
        earnings from work.
            (11) Payroll deductions under the FICA are the 
        contributions that workers and their employers pay into Social 
        Security, and represent the direct link between earnings and 
        benefits.
            (12) These payroll contributions provide a secure and 
        dedicated source of revenue to finance the earned benefits.
            (13) Eliminating these payroll contributions would end 
        Social Security, making it unable to pay any disability 
        benefits beginning in 2021 and unable to pay any retirement or 
        survivor benefits beginning in 2023.
            (14) Social Security is irreplaceable and has been a 
        cornerstone of our nation's social compact for more than three-
        quarters of a century.
            (15) The President's recent executive action to defer 
        payroll taxes from September through December 2020 is the first 
        step in his announced plan to entirely defund Social Security 
        by eliminating payroll contributions altogether beginning in 
        2021.
            (16) Eliminating the payroll tax would destroy Social 
        Security and with it the financial stability of generations of 
        retirees, widows, children, and people with severe 
        disabilities.
            (17) Therefore, Congress rejects the President's proposals 
        to defer now and eliminate later the payroll contributions 
        which fund Social Security's earned benefits.

SEC. 2. NULLIFICATION OF CERTAIN EXECUTIVE ACTIONS TO PERMIT THE 
              DELAYED WITHHOLDING AND DEPOSIT OF PAYROLL TAXES.

    As of the date of the enactment of this Act, neither the Secretary 
of the Treasury, nor any delegate of the Secretary of the Treasury, 
shall implement Internal Revenue Service Notice 2020-65 (entitled 
``Relief with Respect to Employment Tax Deadlines Applicable to 
Employers Affected by the Ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) Disease 2019 
Pandemic'') and such Notice shall be null and void.
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