Dear Mr. Leader and Mr. Chairman:
On June 5, 2003, the Senate passed H.R. 1308, the Relief for Working Families Act of 2003,by a vote of 94-2. The Senate then requested a conference with the House of Representatives andappointed conferees. On June 12, the House of Representatives passed an amendment to H.R. 1308and appointed conferees to resolve the differences between the two versions of the bill. However,to date the conference committee on H.R. 1308 has not met due to the extensive work onprescription drug legislation.
We are hoping to convene a meeting of the conferees to begin working toward a finalagreement on this legislation. To facilitate the discussion, we are proposing an initial offer that webelieve is a good faith attempt at a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the bill.The main elements of our offer include an acceleration of the refundability of the child credit, anextension of the $1,000 child credit through 2007, an elimination of the marriage penalty in the childtax credit though 2007, a simplification of the definition of a child for tax purposes, and the ArmedForces Tax Fairness Act. We also believe that we should discuss the issue of including offsets ina final agreement.
We look forward to hearing from you soon to schedule a meeting of the conferencecommittee on H.R. 1308 so that we can resolve this matter in a timely manner. Thank you for yourconsideration.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
Chairman
Don Nickles United States Senator
Trent Lott United States Senator
cc: The Honorable Max Baucus The Honorable Charles Rangel The Honorable Blanche Lincoln
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Source: Ranking Member’s News
