House Republicans said they plan to schedule a vote on extending
the Bush tax cuts before August.
In a legislative agenda released Friday by House Majority Leader
Eric Cantor, R-Va., he wrote, “Before we leave for August, I expect to schedule
a vote on legislation preventing the largest tax increase in history,”
according to Reuters.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last
Wednesday in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that she wants to
schedule a vote on extending the tax cuts for those who earn less than $1
million and use the extra tax revenue from those earning over $1 million to
pay down the deficit.
“Without further delay, the Majority Leadership should schedule
a vote on extension of the middle income tax cuts, as early as next week, to
increase certainty for millions of American taxpayers and for the economy,” she
wrote. “We must ask the very wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.
Democrats believe that tax cuts for those earning over a million dollars a year
should expire and that we should use the resulting revenues to pay down the
deficit… It is unacceptable to hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to
extending multi-billion dollar tax breaks for millionaires, Big Oil, special
interests, and corporations that ship jobs overseas.”
The Obama administration position is that the Bush-era tax rates
should only be extended for those who earn $250,000 a year or less.
Congress is not expected to settle the matter until after the
November election, during a lame-duck session. But there have increasingly been
calls for them to settle the fate of the expiring tax cuts in time to provide
more certainty for next year. IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman and other IRS
officials have urged Congress to decide on the tax rates early enough to avoid
a delay in the forms and schedules for next tax season.