Will new Congress revive LIFO relief bill for dealers?

WASHINGTON — A year-end attempt to pass a bill on the LIFO tax cut ultimately stalled in the House, but dealers affected by record-low new car supply are still skeptical that the bill will pass this year. I hope

The Senate unanimously passed a bill last month — known as the Supply Chain Disruption Relief Act. The bill would have provided relief to dealers using a “last in, first out” inventory accounting method and struggling to maintain inventory levels due to the global semiconductor impact. shortage. The House closed at the end of the year without voting on the bill.

The bill must be reintroduced under a new Congress with a Republican control of the House and a Democratic majority in the Senate.

“After the Senate passed the bill, we are disappointed that the House did not take up the bill before the end of Congress,” Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown said in a statement. car news“This bill has broad bipartisan support, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to cross the finish line and deliver this much-needed remedy.”

Brown’s bill was introduced in late April after Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Michigan) introduced the same House bill earlier that month.

Both bills would allow dealers to wait until 2025 to replace inventory and determine revenue attributable to sales of such inventory in 2020 or 2021, allowing chip shortages to ease and auto Give dealers time to restock inventory as production returns to pre-pandemic. level.

In a joint statement to car newsKildee and co-host Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said they are “committed to continuing to work on bipartisan legislation that will provide much-needed relief to these small businesses.”

The National Auto Dealers Association, which has been lobbying Congress and the Biden administration to bail out LIFO on behalf of new car dealers, said the Senate’s passage of the bill in December was “clear from Congress to resolve this issue through legislation.” It shows good intentions,” he said.

“NADA has built strong bipartisan support for the LIFO relief bill, and the measure will soon be reintroduced in the new Congress,” said NADA CEO Mike Stanton in a statement. “The dealer has finalized the return, but the law exempts the dealer from LIFO retroactively to the 2020 and 2021 tax years.”

Stanton said NADA will work with lawmakers who supported last year’s bill to “increase our momentum and bring legislation forward as soon as possible.”