House members introduce companion medical device tax repeal bill

A quartet of U.S. representatives today introduced a companion bill to a Senate measure that would do away with the medical device tax altogether. The 2.3% levy on U.S. medical device sales went into effect in 2013 but was only in place for two years before Congress put a moratorium in place. When that ended in January 2018, a second moratorium was enacted that’s due to expire at the end of this year. In 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill to repeal the tax 283-132, but the Senate failed to act. Last month Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn.) reintroduced a bill to permanently repeal the excise tax on medical device sales. Today, Reps. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.), Scott Peters (D-Calif.), and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) introduced a companion measure in the lower chamber, also called the Protect Medical Innovation Act. In a February letter seeking to drum up co-sponsors, Kind called the 2.3% excise tax “extremely punitive to medical technology investors,” and said that since its inception there has been “growing bipartisan support” to end it. He must have been persuasive, as the H.R. 2207 bill introduced today enjoys 227 co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle, according to a press release. “Medical devices and new technologies improve the lives and health of millions of Americans every year. Given that this tax applies to revenues – not profits – it is extremely punitiv...
Source: Mass Device - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Business/Financial News Featured medicaldevicetax U.S. Congress Source Type: news