By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH

Indiana Correspondent

WASHIGNTON, D.C. — The U.S. Senate passed the Republican tax cut plan by a 51-49 vote shortly before 2 a.m. on Dec. 2. All Republican senators except Bob Corker of Tennessee voted for the measure; all Democrats voted against it.

A conference committee will now attempt to work out differences between House and Senate versions of the legislation. President Donald Trump has said he wants to see a bill on his desk by Christmas.

“The passage of the Senate bill virtually guarantees tax reform by year end,” said Kristine A. Tidgren, assistant director of the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University. “Although differences in the House and Senate bills must be resolved through a conference process, it is clear that the majority of each chamber is set on reaching a common resolution.”

The House plan calls for a repeal of the estate tax in six years; the Senate version has no such provision. Both bills double the amount of estate property exempt from the tax. The current rates are $5.49 million per person and $10.98 million per couple.

In 2016, there were 5,219 estate tax returns filed nationally for taxable estates, Tidgren said. Of those, 682 had any farm property.

Both bills expand Section 179 expensing. The Senate bill raises the deduction limit for small businesses to $1 million, she noted. The House version would increase the deduction to $5 million, but the provision would end in five years.

The House and Senate kept the Section 1031 like-kind exchange provision for real property, but removed it for personal property.

The bills would lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 20 percent and both make changes in the individual tax bracket structure. The Senate would retain seven brackets but lower the rates to a range of 10-38.5 percent. The House version would drop the number of brackets to five, with a top rate of 39.6 percent.

Both measures would nearly double the standard deduction from the current amounts of $6,350 for single filers and $12,700 for married couples.

The National Farmers Union condemned the Senate measure. “Today, The U.S. Senate voted to cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals and corporations in our country, and pay for those cuts by adding $1.5 trillion to the deficit and shifting the tax burden onto the rest of us, and to our children and grandchildren,” said Roger Johnson, NFU president.

“This legislation and its counterpart on the House side are inherently flawed and Congress should reject any combination of the two.”

Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, offered support for the Senate bill. “Farmers and ranchers have long called for a fair tax code that recognizes our hard work as well as the unique challenges we face in growing our nation’s food, fiber and fuel,” he said.

“We applaud the Senate’s commitment to key tax provisions farm and ranch businesses depend on, such as immediate expensing, business interest deduction and cash accounting.”