Senate Bill Includes Meals, Estate Tax Gains for Trucking

The Senate debated a Republican-sponsored $792 billion tax cut bill last week that would speed up restoration of the 80% tax deduction for meals eaten by truckers on the road and reduce the estate tax.

As Transport Topics went to press, the Senate was locked in a battle over an alternative $500 billion tax cut proposal offered by a bipartisan group of senators led by John Chafee (R-R.I.) and John Breaux (D-La.).

Chafee did not pursue his proposal to impose a national weight-distance tax on trucks. The measure would have cost government at least $240 million a year to administer, according to American Trucking Associations, which aggressively lobbied against the proposal.

The larger tax cut bill contains a provision that would advance by a year the date in which truck drivers would be able to claim a higher tax deduction for meals eaten while on the road. At the request of Sen. Connie Mack (R-Fla.), the Senate Finance Committee agreed to restore the 80% deduction by 2007, instead of 2008. Trucking interests were working with Mack and other Senate leaders last week to speed the restoration of the increased deduction even further.

Trucking company owners wishing to pass their businesses on to their children would benefit from another provision in the Senate bill reducing the maximum 55% estate and gift tax to 50% beginning in 2001.

If passed by the Senate, the legislation must be reconciled with a similar House bill before being sent to President Clinton, who said he would veto legislation that contains tax cuts of more than $300 billion.

For the full story, see the August 2 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.