Medtech CEOs: Hatch ’ s last stand should be medtech tax repeal

A trio of medical device CEOs are urging Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who’s soon to retire after four decades in the Senate, to make permanent repeal of the medical device tax one of his final acts in office. The 2.3% excise tax on U.S. medical device revenues was in effect for two years before a two-year moratorium began in 2016. It went back into effect at the beginning of this year, although the IRS said this week that it will not enforce any penalties for late payments of the medtech levy. (Last night the U.S. House passed a stopgap budget measure that would put a two-year pause on the tax; Senate Democrats vowed to filibuster over immigration issues.) Hatch, who spearheaded the effort to push the pause button on the medtech levy in 2015, filed several bills over the years to do away with the tax. The Salt Lake Tribune last night published an op-ed piece by Fred Lampropoulos, founder & CEO of Jordan, Utah-based Merit Medical (NSDQ:MMSI), Becton Dickinson & Co. (NYSE:BDX) chief Vincent Forlenza and Mike Mussallem, CEO of Edwards Lifesciences (NYSE:EW). The chief executives, whose companies employ some 4,300 Utahns, wrote that those jobs “are threatened by the return of the medical device tax” and pushed Hatch to make one last effort to kill it. “The impact of this levy has and will have far-reaching effects on patients, jobs and the economy,” they wrote. “Hatch has been a leader on this issue for years. As chairman of the F...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Wall Street Beat bectondickinson Capitol Hill Edwards Lifesciences medicaldevicetax Merit Medical Systems Inc. Source Type: news