House Ways and Means Committee Chair Dave Camp, R-Mich., indicated last week that he plans to release a full tax reform bill as early as Feb. 26. The legislation will be characterized as a discussion draft, but will include full legislative language and revenue estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office.
Details are not yet available, but the bill is expected to lower both corporate and individual tax rates, repeal scores of tax benefits and move toward a territorial tax system. The draft bill will be the culmination of two years of effort on Camp's part to push tax reform, and follows his more narrow discussion drafts on international tax rules, pass-through taxation and financial instruments.
Tax reform still looks unlikely in the near term. Camp has spent much of 2013 and 2014 trying to build support within the Republican caucus for tax reform, but at this time he does not appear to have plans to actually mark up the bill in the Ways and Means Committee. Republican leadership is wary of forcing members to make tough tax reform votes in an election year, and the Senate champion of tax reform, former Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus, D-Mont., has left Congress to become the ambassador to China. His successor, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been a vocal supporter of tax reform in the past, but indicated that right now he is more focused on addressing the tax "extender" provisions that expired at the end of 2013. The administration has offered only lukewarm support for corporate tax reform.
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