WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. House committee in charge of taxes released on Friday evening a partial text of its part of President Donald Trump’s proposed tax agenda that would make his 2017 tax cuts permanent, leaving out contentious issues before a planned vote on Tuesday.
The 28-page proposal by the House Ways and Means Committee would increase the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,500 through 2028 and to $2,000 after, and adds a requirement for recipients to have a Social Security number and reduces some taxes for multinational companies and unincorporated businesses.
But it does not address more hotly contested issues like what to do with the current $10,000 deduction limit for state and local taxes, which is important to states with high taxes like New York, California and New Jersey.
It also does not address the fate of Medicaid, which covered about 35 million people in states Trump won in last year’s presidential election and clean energy tax credits that benefit some Republican states.
“Ways and Means Republicans have spent two years preparing for this moment, and we will deliver for the American people,” said Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith of Missouri.
U.S. congressional Republicans are struggling over how to pay for what Trump has called his “big, beautiful bill” – a multitrillion-dollar tax-cut and immigration reform agenda, with the fate of the Medicaid healthcare program and the nation’s debt ceiling hanging in the balance.
The party is torn between hardliners who want tax cuts to be scaled back to achieve a goal of $2 trillion in spending reductions over the next decade and moderates pushing back against large-scale slashing of the Medicaid healthcare program.
Ways and Means is scheduled to hold a meeting to debate and advance the legislation on Tuesday afternoon.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici in WashingtonEditing by Matthew Lewis)
