Tax Relief And Health Care Act of 2006

TAX RELIEF AND HEALTH CARE ACT OF 2006 -- (House of Representatives - December 08, 2006)

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Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support H.R. 6111, the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.

The bill contains a package of provisions designed to improve Health Savings Accounts, HSAs. HSAs were enacted by the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. An HSA is a tax-exempt account to which tax-deductible contributions may be made by individuals with a high deductible health plan.

HSAs empower Americans to make informed decisions about their health care choices. Instead of being tied into a traditional plan that limits choice, and distances the consumer from the healthcare market, HSAs allow individuals to take an active role in the choosing how to spend their money.

This bill will:

Allow rollovers From Health FSAs and HRAs into HSAs;

Repeal the Annual Plan Deductible Limitation on HSA Contributions;

Modify the Cost-of-Living Adjustment;

Expand the Contribution Limitation for Part-Year Coverage;

Modify employer comparable contribution requirements for contributions made to non-highly compensated employees; and

Allow one-time roll overs from IRAs into HSAs.

Health Savings Accounts help families more easily access quality health care and save for medical costs. This bill will expand HSAs to help provide more Americans with health care coverage.

Mrs. JONES of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this tax legislation.

H.R. 6111 includes many important provisions for the benefit of the American economy.

Although I would have preferred a longer extension, this bill extends for one year:

The R&D Tax Credit, which is a job creator and important to our domestic manufacturers, keeping them competitive globally;

The Welfare-to-Work and Work-Opportunity Tax Credits, which are incentives for employers that hire economically disadvantaged individuals with significant barriers to employment; and

The New Markets Tax Credit, which is important to the economic revitalization of our urban areas, such as Cleveland, Ohio.

And there are many more important tax provisions that this bill contains, in particular one which I have worked with Congressmen MIKE TURNER and JOHN BOEHNER and the Ohio delegation in a bipartisan fashion last year.

It deals with Regional Income Tax Agencies, and it helps municipalities improve their tax collection.

In my home State of Ohio we have the Regional Income Tax Agency (also known as RITA), which provides services to collect income tax for 120 municipalities in the state--including the cities of Shaker Heights, East Cleveland, Beachwood, and others in my district.

However, because their individual populations do not exceed 250,000 people, these cities cannot receive Federal tax information from the IRS in order to better and more accurately collect local taxes.

This legislation will allow municipalities that are members of Regional Income Tax Agencies to receive tax information from the IRS. Ohio RITA has determined that this will have two important economic benefits to Ohio cities:

1. Identification of delinquent taxpayers, which significantly enhance tax revenues to RITA municipalities in Ohio to the extent of a projected $21 million per year, and

2. Streamlining current business processes, thereby reducing costs to member municipalities.

Additional revenues are exactly what cities in Ohio need as local governments face tough decisions to cut critical services such as police and fire protection. These additional funds can now go towards those key social services, as well as our schools.

That is why I am in favor of this legislation and support its passage.

However, let me state that I am greatly disappointed that relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is not in this legislation.

The temporary AMT relief that Congress passed earlier this year expires at the end of this year, and it is not being extended in this legislation. That means that without AMT relief 15 million Americans face a tax increase as they stand to be hit by the AMT next year.

The Republican leadership decided to punt to the Democrats on that issue. But that is okay, as we Democrats have vowed next year to defuse the ticking time bomb that is the AMT.

The American people have placed us, Democrats, in the majority for a reason. They trust us to tackle the important issues that affect American families--and we will deliver.

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