McCaul Introduces Bill to Shield Texans from Tax on Christmas Trees

WASHINGTON, DC –Today, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX) introduced the Christmas Tree Tax Exclusion Act, which would exclude "choose and cut" Christmas tree producers, like the Elgin CHRISTmas Tree Farm in Texas' 10th congressional district, from a new Obama Administration tax on Christmas trees.

McCaul: "The Christmas tree tax should have never been implemented in the first place," said McCaul. "Small producers, like Marc Nash of the Elgin CHRISTmas Tree Farm in my district, shouldn't be forced to tax their customers to pay for big agribusiness producers to market their products. While I support a full repeal of this misguided tax, I hope Congress can at least agree to exempt small choose and cut producers who sell directly to the final consumer."

The Christmas tree tax was first concocted by the Obama Administration in November 2010, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued a regulation establishing a program for large-size Christmas tree producers to tax consumer for the purpose of marketing their trees. The Administration suspended the implementation of the regulation after a public backlash, only to see the regulation quietly revived in the 2014 Farm Bill. An amendment offered in the House of Representatives by Representative Jackie Walorski (R-IN), and supported by Representative McCaul, would have blocked the tax from going into effect, but it was narrowly defeated. No similar vote was taken in the Senate.

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