The House passed (314-112) legislation (H.R. 4) to repeal new Form 1099 reporting rules that are burdensome to all businesses.

Bills passed by the House and Senate use different methods to offset the cost of the repeal and that could delay enactment of a final resolution. Almost all Representatives and Senators have signaled their support for repeal by voting for measures that would repeal new requirements requiring businesses and landlords to issue a Form 1099 for payments to corporations for goods and services that exceed $600 per year. Although the reports are not required until 2012, businesses need to know whether to invest in programs or implement procedures that enable them to track the payments during 2011 in order to report in 2012.

The House debate focused almost exclusively on a $25 billion adjustment to the premium assistance tax credits in the ’10 health care law that the Republican majority used to pay for the Form 1099 repeal.

The Senate previously included an amendment, authored by Sen. Stabenow, D-Mich., chairman of the Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee, in an aviation reauthorization bill (S. 223) to repeal the Form 1099 rules for businesses but not landlords and to pay for it through budgetary rescissions of $44 billion in unobligated discretionary spending. The Senate has not determined how to proceed to reconcile the differences with the House-passed measure, according to a spokesman for Majority Leader Reid, D-Nev.

The NCC has joined with other agriculture and business organizations in frequent correspondence to Representatives and Senators to urge the repeal of the new reporting requirement. A copy of the most recent correspondence is available at www.cotton.org.

Because businesses need to know that they will not be required to maintain burdensome and expensive records, the NCC will continue to work for prompt resolution of the differences between the House and Senate legislation so it can be sent to the President for his signature as quickly as possible.