NLBMDA Members Visit Congress to Push for Credit Card Reform, Low-Income Housing, Tax Issues and Forests

Roughly 50 members of the National Lumber and Building Material Dealers Association fanned out across Capitol Hill on April 2, urging members to move on four issues. Here's a summary of what they promoted:

Credit Card Swipe Fees: Dealers asked Senators and Representatives to co-sponsor the Credit Card Competition Act when it gets reintroduced this spring. Currently, Visa and MasterCard hold a near-monopoly over card processing, and their fees siphon significant amounts of money from dealers. The legislation would require that credit card transactions be able to be routed over at least two unaffiliated processing networks. The idea is that opening up the processing to more businesses will promote competition and thus lead to lower prices. Big banks and global card networks are fighting this bill vigorously.

Affordable Housing Credits: Since 1986, the federal government has offered a Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) to encourage the building and rehabbing of affordable rental housing. "Without LIHTC, there would be virtually no private investment in affordable housing since it is fundamentally uneconomic to build housing that very low-income people can afford," NLBMDA says. The association backs the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, which increases LIHTC allocations 50% above current levels and restores a 12.5% increase that expired in 2021. In the previous Congress, the same bill got 273 House and 34 Senate co-sponsors, and roughly 20 Republican House members already have agreed to sponsor it when it's reintroduced, an NBLDMA lobbyist said.

Small-Business Tax Relief: Several provisions of the tax-cut package approved in 2017 during President Trump's first term are set to expire. The Republican majority in Congress wants to extend many of the provisions. In particular, NLBMDA wants to make permanent the 100% bonus depreciation and 20% deduction of qualified income for pass-through businesses, as well as repeal forever the estate tax.

Forests: The House already has passed the Fix Our Forests Act, which, as NLBMDA describes it, "promotes collaboration across government levels and strengthens wildlife management tools." Now it's the Senate's turn to do the same, NLBMDA says. The association also supports the Disaster Reforestation Act, which enables forest landowners to deduct the full value of their timber when it's destroyed by natural disaster.