Middle Income Wage Earner Tax Relief Act of 1980
Latest action. Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means.
Middle-Income Wage Earner Tax Relief Act of 1980 - Title I: Four Percent Income Tax Credit for Individuals - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow a refundable income tax credit equal to four percent of the taxes paid by individual taxpayers. Limits the amount of such credit to $250 for the taxable year for a taxpayer filing an individual return and $500 for the taxable year for taxpayers filing a joint return. Disallows such credit to any estate, trust, or nonresident alien individual. Title II: Permanent Tax Credit for Social Security Taxes - Amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow a refundable income tax credit equal to ten percent of the net social security taxes paid by employees, employers, and self-employed individuals during the taxable year. Title III: Relief from Marriage Penalty - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to allow married individuals filing jointly a nonrefundable income tax credit equal to six percent of the earned income of the spouse who earns 50 percent or less of the combined earned income of both the husband and wife for the taxable year. Limits the amount of such credit to $500 for the taxable year. Requires the reduction of such credit by one percent for each percentage point by which the lower income spouse's earned income is below 30 percent of the couple's combined earned income. Title IV: 10-5-3 Capital Cost Recovery - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to revise the method for determining useful lives of business assets for purposes of computing allowable depreciation deductions. Replaces the asset depreciation range (ADR) method with a schedule of capital cost recovery periods for three classes of business property. Establishes capital cost recovery periods for the following classes of business property: (1) buildings and their structural components, ten years; (2) tangible property, five years; and (3) automobiles, taxis, and light-duty trucks (up to $100,000), three-years. Allows a ten percent investment tax credit for buildings and tangible property, and a six percent credit for automobiles, taxis, and light duty trucks. Requires the recapture of depreciation amounts and investment tax credit amounts applicable to assets which are sold or otherwise disposed of prior to the expiration of the capital cost recovery period. Permits a taxpayer to deduct less than the full allowance for capital cost recovery in any taxable year. Permits a carryover to succeeding taxable years of any unused depreciation amounts. Disqualifies capital cost recovery property from the allowance for first year depreciation. Treats amounts claimed as the capital cost recovery of noncorporate lessors as an item of tax preference for purposes of the minimum tax. Adopts as an accounting practice the "half year convention" under which investments eligible for capital cost recovery treatment or the investment tax credit which are made at any time during the taxable year are deemed to be made in the middle of such year.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on September 24, 1980. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on September 24, 1980: Referred to House Committee on Ways and Means.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 96th Congress (1979-80), 613 of the 12,581 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 4.9 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
JIM MATTOX (D-TX) introduced it on September 24, 1980. No cosponsors are recorded.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on September 24, 1980, 16787 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 16787 days ago, on September 24, 1980.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 96th Congress has not finished by January 3, 1981 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers