June 08, 2010

On June 8, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) unveiled a revised version of the House-passed tax extenders bill, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act, H.R. 4213, that they have introduced as a substitute amendment. The substitute amendment modifies the House-passed bill’s carried-interest tax provision and adds back Medicaid spending cut by the House when it made several cost-reducing changes to the version House and Senate negotiators released May 20.

Several senators and Senate staff have said they expect the debate to last at least several days, during which time other senators may offer amendments to the Reid/Baucus substitute amendment. We continue to believe that adding new matter, such as NCSHA’s other Housing Bond and Credit priorities, including expanding the Exchange program to disaster and 4 percent Credits, an investor carry-back provision, and incentives for individual investors, will be extremely difficult. However, we continue to explore the opportunity for amendment with the Finance Committee leadership.

As we reported in our June 1 blog post, the House passed H.R. 4213 May 28 after making changes that did not amend several NCSHA priority items in the bill, including:
 

  • A one-year extension, through 2010, of the Housing Credit Exchange program;
  • A two-year extension, through 2012, of the placed-in-service date for properties financed with GO Zone Credits; and
  • $1 billion in funding for a one-time capitalization of the National Housing Trust Fund and $65 million for project-based vouchers to states to support Trust-financed properties.


The Senate substitute amendment also does not modify these provisions.

The House-passed bill and the Senate substitute amendment also include a two-year extension of the Build America Bonds (BABs) program, a one-year extension of tax-exempt housing bond disaster relief, an exemption from the private activity bond volume cap for bonds financing water and sewage facilities, and a one-year extension of the New Markets Tax Credit program.