Washington, Dec. 14 (IANS): US Senate and House Republicans have struck an agreement on a sweeping tax-cut bill that, if passed, would be the first major piece of legislation signed by President Donald Trump, the media reported.
Senate Republican leaders shared the details of the revamped bill with members of their conference on Wednesday and Speaker Paul Ryan updated his colleagues later in the day, reports The Hill magazine.
"I'm confident we'll pass the bill next week," Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn, a member of the Senate-House negotiating conference, told reporters.
Republican leaders plan to hold an initial procedural vote on December 18, a final Senate vote on December 19 and then send the measure to the House for final passage.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell heralded the development as something that would boost the middle class.
"We want to take more money out of Washington's pocket and put more money into the pockets of the middle class. I'm confident the conference committee will finalize a bill that does just that," he tweeted.
Senate negotiators convinced their House counterparts to preserve two important middle-class tax breaks: the deduction on student loan interest and the exclusion for tuition waivers received by graduate students, reports The Hill magazine.
The bill would also cap the popular mortgage interest deduction at $750,000, a midpoint compromise between the Senate and House bills.
Negotiators were still working on how many tax brackets to set, said congressional aides. Republican senators said they expected the final bill to tilt toward the seven brackets they passed in their version.
Lawmakers were rushing to get the bill done before the Christmas holiday.
The legislation will repeal the federal mandate requiring people to buy insurance - a core piece of ObamaCare.
The bill also would give some relief to people in high-tax areas by allowing them to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local taxes.
Meanwhile, a provision to set a corporate alternative minimum tax - which would have raised $40 billion over 10 years - has been stripped out.
