Senate's Budget Extends CRE Tax Breaks, Would Lift Debt Ceiling To $5T
Senate Republicans released their version of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Monday afternoon, advancing sweeping tax breaks but leaving one major sticking point unresolved.
The financial provisions of the bill, unveiled by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, largely mirror the version passed by the House of Representatives in a late-night vote in May. But Republicans have yet to reach a deal on a tax deduction popular in high-tax states with Republican districts.
A tax break meant to spur manufacturing that House Republicans had approved for five years in the bill was extended permanently in the Senate version. The provision, known as 100% bonus depreciation, allows businesses to fully deduct the price of some large purchases all at once rather than over the course of years.
Full bonus depreciation, which was set to expire this year, already applied to most equipment and machinery, thanks to Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The updated language expands qualifying purchases to cover the physical real estate of a new or extensively refurbished factory.
The House’s version of the bill expanded the tax break, but only through 2029, which would cost $234B in lost tax revenue over the next five years, according to the nonprofit Tax Foundation, which supports the provision. Equipment and real estate used for research and development would also be eligible for the deduction.
A compromise for the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, is notably absent from the Senate bill. Instead, it includes the existing $10K SALT cap for individuals and no ceiling for businesses as a placeholder while Republican lawmakers continue to negotiate a more palatable deal, Bloomberg reported.
Republicans from districts in high-tax states, which tend to lean more toward Democrats nationally, are fighting with fiscal hawks to increase the cap, which allows taxpayers to deduct state taxes from their federal bill.
An early version of the House bill proposed eliminating the SALT deduction for corporations, setting off alarm bells across commercial real estate and leading to a lobbying effort to keep the tax break.
The Senate bill would also increase the debt ceiling to $5T instead of the $4T that cleared the House. The White House had at one point floated the idea of eliminating the debt ceiling altogether, a move that analysts warned would threaten the dollar’s position as the leading global currency.
Senators also trimmed a proposed tax on university endowments from 21% to 8% for the wealthiest schools but kept in place a provision to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime pay, according to Bloomberg.
The bill that passed the House would cut spending by $1.6T over 10 years but add $2.4T to the federal deficit over the same period, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which hasn't yet released numbers on the Senate proposal.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday that the Senate would vote on the bill next week. Congress is racing to meet a July 4 deadline Trump suggested earlier this month.
