Sen. Ron Wyden, the committee's top Democrat, says the bill includes renewable energy incentives he's "proud to fight for." (Photo: AP)
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., introduced legislation to retroactively extend through this year tax provisions that expired at the end of 2017 and 2018 — including mortgage insurance premiums treated as qualified residence interest and the above-the-line deduction for qualified tuition and related expenses.
Grassley and Wyden's bill, the Tax Extenders and Disaster Relief Act of 2019, extends credits at their current level for 2018 and 2019 and also includes disaster tax relief benefits to individuals and businesses affected by major disasters occurring in 2018.
There are 26 provisions that expired at the end of 2017 and three that expired at the end of 2018.
"Congress needs to get out of this bad habit of regular retroactive extensions of these tax provisions," Grassley said in a statement. "The whole point of these federal tax incentives is to encourage certain behaviors, especially investments in alternative energies, energy efficiency and transportation. The best way to do that is ahead of time, not retroactively,"
