Federal taxes on education savings plans
What they say
His campaign says that in Congress he worked to eliminate federal taxes on education savings plans.
“In Congress, Mike worked to eliminate federal taxes on education savings plans and passed legislation to help low-income families receive healthcare.”
What the record shows ·
He sponsored three bills on it. The SAVE Act of 2001 (H.R. 475) would have kept distributions from state tuition plans used for college out of taxable income; H.R. 5054 in 2002 would have made that exclusion permanent; the SAVE Act of 2005 (H.R. 2994) would have done the same and added a deduction for contributions. He also cosponsored two: the College Savings Protection Act (H.R. 248, 2001), which would have excluded the same distributions from gross income, and the Education Savings Act of 2003 (H.R. 3318), which would have excluded from an employee's income an employer's contributions to education savings. None advanced past committee. The exclusion itself became law in section 402(b) of the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, which he voted for on passage on May 16, 2001 (Roll Call 118) and on the conference report on May 26 (Roll Call 149). That act set it to expire after 2010; section 1304 of the Pension Protection Act of 2006 made it permanent, and he voted Aye on that act's passage on July 28, 2006 (Roll Call 422).
Limit: His own bills stalled, but one became law inside a larger act: section 1304 of the Pension Protection Act, which he voted for, made the tax break permanent in nearly the words of his 2002 bill (H.R. 5054). "Worked to" is what the record shows: sponsorship in three Congresses, cosponsorship in two and votes for both laws. The deduction for contributions that two of his bills proposed never became federal law. The second half of the same sentence, on health care for low-income families, has its own card.