[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 82 (Thursday, May 16, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2905-S2906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Tax Provisions

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, some time ago, specifically February 28, 
I came to the Senate to visit with my colleagues about the more than 
two dozen tax provisions that expired at the end of 2017. That same 
day, I joined with Finance Committee Ranking Member Wyden of Oregon to 
introduce a bill entitled ``Tax Extender Disaster Relief Act of 2019'' 
to extend these two dozen tax provisions through 2019.
  I very much thank Ranking Member Wyden for his cooperation on this 
effort. Actually, we have a lot of cooperation on a lot of different 
subjects within the Finance Committee.
  Now, unfortunately, we are still waiting on House Democrats to send 
us a tax bill that includes those provisions so taxpayers who have 
relied on them can finish their 2018 tax returns. I have had some 
discussions with the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and I 
don't have any reason to believe he doesn't believe some of these 
extenders should be extended. I suppose because they are new to run the 
House of Representatives, and they have dissension within their own 
caucus, it takes a while to get an active group of people pushing for 
this particular legislation, but it ought to be easy to happen because 
these tax provisions have traditionally been extended every 2 or 3 
years over the last 20 years--maybe longer than that in some cases.
  I remind my colleagues in the House of Representatives that taxpayers 
have all but run out of time. Part of my purpose in introducing the Tax 
Extender and Disaster Relief Act way back in February was to provide 
additional certainty for the current year for those businesses that 
have made use of these tax credits in the past.
  I noted that in most cases, Congress enacted those provisions to 
provide an incentive for taxpayers to engage in certain actions like 
investment and job creation.
  In February, I also reminded my colleagues that those incentives are 
most effective when taxpayers can rely on them during the tax year. For 
the most part, over the last three decades, they have had that 
certainty by the renewal of these tax provisions.
  Regrettably, we are now one-third of the way through 2019 with no 
certainty for affected taxpayers in sight. I also said, in my February 
remarks, that my broader objective of including an extension through 
2019 was so we could have some maneuvering room to examine the 
temporary provisions overall and try to identify longer term 
solutions. Through efforts in the last Congress, we identified 
potential long-term solutions for two of them--the short-line railroad 
tax credit and the biodiesel tax credit--but we have the opportunity 
now to do more.

  While we continue to try to help taxpayers who still need to resolve 
their 2018 tax returns, we need to press ahead on more permanent 
solutions so we can end Congress's continual bad habit of waiting until 
the eleventh hour or months after to extend temporary tax policy.
  Accordingly, today, I am announcing, along with Ranking Member Wyden, 
that the Finance Committee will form several bipartisan task forces to 
examine the temporary tax policies. These task forces will consist of 
members of the Finance Committee and will focus on provisions that 
expired or will expire between December 31, 2017, and December 31 of 
this year. That is a total of 42 expiring tax provisions.
  Each task force will be charged with examining temporary tax policies 
within one of five identified issue areas. These issue areas are: 
workforce and community development, health taxes, energy, business 
cost recovery, and a combined group consisting of individual, excise 
taxes, and other temporary policies.
  We will ask the task forces to work with the stakeholders, other 
Senate offices, and interested parties to consider the original 
purposes of the policies and whether the need for the provisions 
continues today. If so, we will ask the task force to identify possible 
solutions that would provide long-term certainty in these areas. That 
may mean the credit or deduction phases out over a period of years to 
provide an affected

[[Page S2906]]

industry a glide path to self-sufficiency. In other cases, it may mean 
the provision could be scaled back while still providing a sufficient 
benefit for the affected industry or taxpayers in exchange for long-
term certainty. If there is little or no case for continuing the 
temporary policy, the task force should consider whether the provision 
should be eliminated.
  There may also be provisions that the task force identifies that 
should be extended without reform. For these provisions, the task force 
will have to consider whether a continued short-term extension is 
sufficient to achieve the policy goals, whether a longer term extension 
is desirable to force a future Congress to reevaluate the provision 
down the road, or if permanency is warranted.
  This is particularly relevant for the temporary tax policies relating 
to healthcare. For these, we will ask the task force to focus on 
whether the tax policy should be extended and for what duration. Of 
course, we will leave the evaluation of the underlying healthcare 
policy to the health experts.
  In all, the task forces will work to identify reform proposals, like 
those identified for the short-line railroad tax credit and the 
biodiesel tax credit last year, so we can end the policy of having 
Congress always kick the can down the road each time, or, as is the 
case with 2018, an even worse policy of doing the kicking months after 
the year has ended.
  If Congress is going to use temporary tax policy, taxpayers should be 
able to count on it for the intended period. Moreover, the intended 
policy should be clear so that taxpayers do not fall into the trap of 
relying on a provision simply because Congress has created the 
expectation that the provisions will be consistently extended even well 
after the fact.
  Taxpayers who have been relying on these provisions have been doing 
what Congress has wanted them to do. That happens to be free-market 
investing in certain types of property, hiring new employees, or taking 
other types of action. We shouldn't punish them for doing what Congress 
intended with these tax provisions.
  Additionally, we will have a sixth task force to examine the related 
issue of temporary disaster tax relief. It will consider whether we 
should have a core set of permanent proposals so taxpayers who have 
suffered through devastating disasters--like with the floods, most 
recently, in my home State of Iowa--don't have to wait for Congress to 
act before they can start rebuilding their lives, their small 
businesses, or their farms.
  We have asked the task forces to begin their work right away, and we 
expect them to complete their efforts by the end of June. This should 
provide adequate time to identify possible long-term solutions that 
could be enacted this year to end the annual extenders drama and 
provide certainty to the taxpayers who utilize those provisions.
  We will continue to work with the House of Representatives to resolve 
the situation with respect to the 2018 temporary policies and to 
provide relief for all of those affected by the disasters of 2018 and 
so far this year, but we shouldn't wait any longer to start laying the 
groundwork to deal with all of these temporary tax policies as 
permanently as possible.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Finance 
Committee, Senator Grassley, for his leadership on these issues. I look 
forward to working with him on the assigned task forces and to working 
hard on very important issues that he and I have been working on in the 
past--from biodiesel, to energy policy, to a variety of things. I thank 
him for that.