Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.) is hoping the 3rd time is the charm for repealing the medical device tax, as the Minnesota lawmaker plans to file another bill to roll back the 2.3% levy this week, MassDevice.com has learned.
Paulsen is slated to introduce the bill alongside Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) at a Washington press conference Jan. 7, a spokesman in Paulsen’s office told us.
Paulsen’s 2 previous attempts at spiking the levy generated widespread support in the House of Representatives and but were never brought to a vote in the U.S. Senate, which has been under Democratic control since 2006.
The 2.3% excise tax on U.S. sales of prescribed medical devices was enacted along with the Affordable Care Act in 2010. It was derided by the industry and its supporters as a drag on job growth and innovation even before it went into effect at the start of 2013.
A Paulsen-penned bid to repeal the levy successfully passed 242-173 in the House in June 2012, but failed to move on to the Upper Chamber. Paulsen re-introduced the bill in 2013, along with Kind, gathering 275 co-sponsors but failing to get to a vote. Last September, the House passed a measure to repeal and refund the device tax.
Estimates of the impact of the medical device tax have varied wildly since its inception in 2009; 4 years of political deadlock, which included a federal government shutdown over the issue, have done little to add clarity. Federal government officials have projected that the tax will raise about $30 billion over 10 years. Back in July 2013 a report released by a coalition of medical device lobbying groups estimated that the tax had cost the industry $1 billion during the 1st 6 months of that year.
But in July, MassDevice.com learned via a Freedom of Information Act request to the Internal Revenue Service that the tax bureau collected $1.4 billion from the medical device tax in 2013, the 1st year it was in effect, far short of all predictions. Then an audit by a U.S. Treasury inspector general revealed that the IRS collected a little more than $913 million during the 1st half of 2013, well shy of the $1.2 billion it expected to bring in.