[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 26586]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              TOP TEN TAX INCREASES INCLUDED IN H.R. 3962

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, as anyone who has been paying much attention 
to what has been going on in Congress this fall will know, we have been 
talking about health care. What we had introduced last week was H.R. 
3962, which I call a ``tax increase bill'' masquerading as a health 
care bill, and I want to outline some of the tax increases that are 
included in H.R. 3962 to back up my comments.
  Number 1: Small business surtax, section 551, page 336, $460.5 
billion.
  Number 2: Employer mandate tax, sections 511-512, page 308, $135 
billion. This violates President Obama's pledge to avoid tax increases 
on Americans earning less than $250,000.
  Number 3: Individual mandate tax, section 501, page 296, $33 billion. 
This also violates President Obama's pledge.
  Number 4: Medical device tax, section 552, page 339, $20 billion. 
Again, it violates President Obama's pledge to avoid tax increases on 
Americans earning less than $250,000.
  Number 5: $2,500 annual cap on FSAs, section 532, page 325, $13.3 
billion. It violates President Obama's pledge.
  Number 6: Prohibition on pretax purchases of over-the-counter drugs 
through HSAs, FSAs, and HRAs, section 531, page 324, $5 billion. This 
is another violation.
  Number 7: Tax on health insurance policies to fund Comparative 
Effectiveness Research Trust Fund, section 1802, page 1162, $2 billion. 
It violates the pledge.
  Number 8: 20 percent penalty on certain HSA distributions, section 
533, page 326, $1.3 billion.
  Number 9: Other tax hikes and increased compliance costs on U.S. job 
creators, $56.4 billion; IRS reporting on payments; delay 
implementation of worldwide interest allocation rules; override U.S. 
treaties on certain payments by insourcing businesses; codify economic 
substance doctrine and impose penalties.
  All of these are referenced by the section number and the page number 
so the American people don't have to rely on what we're saying.
  There is one other, which is revenue-raising provisions for $3 
billion.
  The total tax increases in the bill: $729.5 billion. This information 
came from the Joint Committee on Taxation, Congressional Budget Office.
  Mr. Speaker, what we need is reform in our health care system. 
Republicans have offered commonsense reform. Those commonsense reform 
items are not being allowed to be heard. They were voted down in 
committee over and over and over again by the Democrat majority. This 
is not what the American people want. They want to see reform in health 
care, not increased taxes and a job-killing bill that will do very 
little to help with their challenges in dealing with health care 
reform.

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