Restoring Tax and Regulatory Certainty to Small Businesses Act of 2012
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
Restoring Tax and Regulatory Certainty to Small Businesses Act of 2012 - Amends the Internal Revenue Code to extend temporarily: (1) the 100% exclusion from gross income of gain from the sale or exchange of small business stock, (2) the offset against the alternative minimum tax of general business tax credits, (3) the five-year carryback of tax credit amounts of eligible small businesses, (4) a reduction from 10 to 5 years in the recognition period for built-in gains of S corporations, (5) the increased expensing of depreciable business assets, (6) the special tax rule for long-term contract accounting, (7) the increased tax deduction for small business start-up expenditures, and (8) the tax deduction for health insurance premiums in computing self-employment taxable income.
Defines "economic impact" with respect to a proposed or final regulatory rule to mean: (1) any direct economic effect of a rule on small entities, and (2) any reasonably foreseeable economic economic effect on such entities.
Permits small entities to seek judicial review of initial regulatory flexibility analyses and to obtain an injunction of a proposed rule that is noncompliant with Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA) requirements. Requires each agency to establish a plan for the review, every nine years, of: (1) its rules that have a significant adverse economic impact on small entities, and (2) any small entity compliance guide required to be published by an agency. Expands to additional agencies the procedures for gathering comments on rules that will have a significant economic impact on small entities. Extends RFA requirements to any significant agency guidance documents.
Amends the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 1996 to require each agency to review biennially the civil penalties it imposes on small entities for violations of statutory or regulatory requirements.
Imposes additional requirements on agencies prior to the issuance of a final rule, including: (1) the cumulative economic impact of the proposed rule on small entities, and (2) requiring the agency to notify the Chief Counsel for Advocacy of the Small Business Administration (SBA) of draft rules that may have a significant impact on a substantial number of small businesses. Requires agencies to publish an initial regulatory flexibility analysis with respect to any proposed rule that it determines will have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small businesses. Allows the Chief Counsel to comment on agency regulatory action that affects small businesses. Requires the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to include, in a required annual report, specified data and tables describing agency rules.
The summary continues for 18 more paragraphs. Read it in full on Congress.gov
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on September 19, 2012. 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 19, 2012: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- 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 112th Congress (2011-12), 283 of the 10,618 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 2.7 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?
Olympia Snowe (R-ME) introduced it on September 19, 2012. 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 19, 2012, 5104 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 5104 days ago, on September 19, 2012.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 112th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2013 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
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers