On Tuesday, the Senate resumed consideration of the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (H.R. 4213) (pdf), also known as the “tax extender” or “jobs bill” that would extend emergency unemployment compensation and other tax break programs, as well as provide temporary pension funding relief. Although the Senate passed a tax extender bill in March, the House of Representatives on May 28 narrowly cleared a scaled-back version of this legislation that omitted a number of the original provisions, including an extension of the premium COBRA subsidy. The revised Senate bill unveiled this week, which has been offered in the form of a substitute amendment, does not contain the defined contribution plan fee disclosure provisions that would have required the creation of rules relating to fees incurred in connection with defined contribution plans (such as 401(k) plans) for plan administrators and plan participants. A COBRA subsidy extension was not among the changes included in the Senate substitute either. A summary of all of the changes made by the Senate amendment can be found here. (pdf)

Other provisions contained in the House-passed version, such as those providing for refundable alternative minimum tax (AMT) credits for corporations making domestic investments; an employer wage credit for activated military reservists; temporary pension funding relief for single- and multi-employer plans; and unemployment compensation program extensions, remain intact. With respect to the unemployment provisions, the substitute amendment summary (pdf) explains that the bill would do the following:

• Extend the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program through November 2010. This program – which provides up to 53 weeks of extended unemployment benefits depending on a state’s unemployment rate – ended in May.
• Continue the Extended Benefits (EB) program through November 2010. The EB provided up to an additional 13 to 20 weeks of benefits in certain states (13 weeks for states at or above 6.5% unemployment and another 7 weeks for states at or above 8% unemployment).
• Extend Federal Additional Compensation (FAC) through November 2010. FAC, which was also phased out in May, increases unemployment benefits by $25 a week. 
• Eliminate the penalty for part-time employment in the EUC program. As stated in the summary, the bill coordinates EUC benefits with regular unemployment benefits by providing states with a number of options to allow EUC claimants to remain eligible for the EUC program when they become newly entitled to state unemployment compensation if switching to state benefits would reduce their weekly UI check by at least $100 or 25%.

The effort to reinstate the COBRA subsidy extension may continue as more amendments are offered and the bill continues to take shape over the coming days. 

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