House OKs Restoration of Tax Breaks
The House has passed a bill that could give the trucking industry hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks this year for everything from buying new trucks to using natural gas.
The 378-46 vote Dec. 3 would retroactively restore for this year alone more than 50 temporary tax breaks that expired in December 2013.
One tax break would go to carriers who bought new trucks this year. Under the bill, which has yet to be voted on in the Senate, carriers could write off depreciation for any new equipment investments in the purchase year.
In the federal tax code, depreciation write-offs used to be spread over three years. But as part of the economic stimulus program adopted during the recession, businesses have been able to use a vehicle known as bonus depreciation, which lets them take the full write-off the first year.
The bill also would restore until Dec. 31 the 50 cents-per-gallon tax credit that goes to whoever fills trucks with natural gas, whether they are fuel suppliers or carriers with their own natural-gas fueling facilities.
Until it expired last December, there was a 50 cents-per-gallon tax credit available to anyone filling a truck with natural gas or propane, whether they were fleets with their own fueling facilities or owners of natural-gas fueling stations.
Another expired tax credit that could be renewed under the bill is the $30,000 tax credit that went to builders of alternative fuel stations.
Also contained in the bill is a $1-per-gallon tax credit for biodiesel producers. The credit helps them underwrite production costs that are higher than those for diesel, they have said.
At one point, the Senate entertained a plan to extend the dozens of business tax breaks for two years but disagreement over who would receive tax breaks scuttled the plan.
That means that next year, the trucking industry and alternative fuel producers will have to launch another effort to get the tax breaks extended through at least 2015.
