NRF welcomes repeal of tax provision in healthcare law

WASHINGTON -- The National Retail Federation announced that it welcomed the House of Representatives' vote to repeal a provision in last year’s healthcare reform law that would widely expand the number of IRS 1099 tax forms businesses would be required to file.

“This is a commonsense step to keep the business community from being hit with a blizzard of unnecessary paperwork that has nothing to do with health care,” NRF SVP government relations David French said. “The important thing now is for the House and Senate to come together on a final version of repeal and settle this issue as quickly as possible. This provision never should have been in the healthcare bill to begin with and it’s already taken far too long to get it removed.”

The House voted 314-112 to approve H.R. 4, the Small Business Paperwork Mandate Elimination Act, sponsored by Representative Dan Lungren, R-Calif. The bill would repeal a provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 that requires businesses to file a Form 1099 with the Internal Revenue Service whenever they make non-credit card payments totaling $600 or more to a vendor during a single year. Federal law has long required a Form 1099 when a business pays $600 a year or more to an individual or unincorporated business for services, but the new provision extends the requirement to include payments to corporations and to include purchases of tangible goods in addition to services. The broadened requirement is set to go into effect in 2012 and is expected to bring in $19 billion in tax revenue to help fund healthcare reform.

A similar repeal measure was approved by the Senate as part of an unrelated Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill passed on February 17, but the two versions differ on how to make up for the loss of the revenue the provision would raise.