Biodiesel Tax Credit Update

Senate tax writers have filed legislation (S 2256) to extend more than 30 tax breaks that lapsed at the end of 2016, but top House Republicans have resisted. The tax incentives package, which includes biodiesel, could cost about $20 billion over the next two years, according to an estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an independent watchdog. Lawmakers are unlikely to offset that cost with cuts to other programs, leading some lawmakers to oppose the bill because it would further boost the deficit if approved.The tax extensions could get included in a final catchall spending package for the current fiscal year, if there is an omnibus measure rather than a contentious Congress just extending current spending through the end of Fiscal 2018. "I do not want to be pessimistic about it," Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said last week on WNAX radio. "We have done it every time it needed to be done in the past, and I expect that it will be done again. But you know, we have been promised, and promises are cheap in this town."