Obama’s Veto Threat Blows Up Bipartisan Tax Extender Deal


By Jim Geraghty


December 1, 2014 10:46 AM

Who’s the obstructionist now? Leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill were close to an agreement on extending tax breaks scheduled to expire... and the Obama blew it up with a veto threat.
President Barack Obama’s threatened veto of a $400 billion-plus tax-break bill exposed a widening fault line within the Democratic Party.
Negotiators from both parties, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, were preparing to exclude a pair of Obama’s top priorities from a year-end agreement. The plan would lock in permanent extensions of tax breaks for corporations, college students and residents of states without income taxes while not making permanent breaks for low-income families. Obama objected and responded in an unusual way Tuesday.
The White House issued a veto threat before lawmakers released the plan publicly, siding with progressive groups and advocates for a lower budget deficit over his own party’s Senate leaders.

If the deal is good enough for Harry Reid and most Senate Democrats, why isn’t it good enough for President Obama? Why can’t the tax breaks with bipartisan agreement be extended, and the ones without be taken up separately? Why do all of the tax breaks have to be “taken hostage,” to use the term cited in every budget fight?


No deal means higher taxes for lots of people
:
Analysis by The Tax Institute, the independent research arm at H&R Block, shows tax benefits for individuals and small businesses that expired in 2013 could impact as many as one in six taxpayers.
The Tax Institute estimates five of the more popular expired breaks benefiting individuals delivered more than $87 billion in tax benefits in 2013.
These benefits, that include the state and local sales tax deduction, mortgage insurance premium deduction, educator expenses deduction, tuition and fees deduction and the mortgage debt relief tax benefit, are often referred to as the “extenders” because they are part of proposed legislation that would extend up to 55 tax breaks that expired last year. The Tax Institute identified another two benefits as particularly significant to individuals and families — the nonbusiness energy property credit and the charitable IRA distribution provision.
“Unless Congress renews the expired tax breaks, taxpayers of all types and across all incomes will lose tax benefits they’ve used in the past,” said Kathy Pickering, executive director of The Tax Institute at H&R Block. “Taxpayers should prepare themselves and their tax returns for the changes that are ahead and look at other tax benefits for relief.”

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