–Senate Finance Chief Baucus To Present Ideas Next Monday
–House Tax Chief Camp Vows Major 2013 Effort To Overhaul Tax Code
–Senate Finance, House Ways and Means Panels Hold Hearings On Reform

By John Shaw

WASHINGTON (MNI) – Even while Congress remains gridlocked on most
significant fiscal matters, the Senate Finance Committee and the House
Ways and Means Committee continue to hold hearings on how best to
overhaul the tax code.

Both tax panels have organized a steady stream of hearings over the
last two years to examine broad tax reform approaches and consider some
of the mind-numbing details that must be resolved for tax reform to
work.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus will present his
“principles” for tax reform next Monday, June 11, at a seminar hosted by
the Bipartisan Policy Center.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp offered his most
current ideas on tax reform on May 17 at a seminar hosted by the Federal
Policy Group.

In his remarks, Camp said that House Republicans agree on a
“framework for comprehensive reform” that would set the top corporate
and individual rate at 25%, collapse the current six rates on the
individual side of the code to two rates of 10% and 25%, eliminate the
alternative minimum tax, and shift from the current worldwide system of
taxation to a territorial based system.

Camp said the House GOP is determined to “force action in 2013 on
comprehensive tax reform.”

Congressional staffers have said that Camp has been urging
Republicans leaders to press for a one-year extension of the Bush era
tax cuts at the end of 2012 so Congress will have time to enact
comprehensive tax reform that is ready when these provisions expire at
the end of 2013.

While lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate and
President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney support comprehensive
tax reform, the November elections will determine which parties and
leaders will have the opportunity to take the lead on tax reform in
2013.

** MNI Washington Bureau: (202) 371-2121 **

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