Senate panel approves tax breaks

WASHINGTON -- Tax breaks for small businesses sailed through a Senate committee Wednesday, paving the way for an expected boost in the federal minimum wage for workers those businesses hire.\nThe unanimous voice vote by the Finance Committee sets the stage for the full Senate to consider boosting the minimum wage to $7.25 over the next two years. The minimum-wage plan is next in line for floor debate after the Senate wraps up work on an ethics and lobbying-reform bill.\nThe tax provisions would help restaurants, retailers and other businesses that hire welfare and food-stamp recipients as well as difficult-to-hire people such as ex-convicts and the disabled.\nIn keeping with promises by Democratic leaders to accompany the tax cuts with balancing revenue increases, the measure also contains a variety of provisions to close tax loopholes and curb corporate tax shelters -- provisions that have passed the Senate in recent years, only to die in the GOP-dominated House.\nThe new House, in which Democrats hold the majority, passed the three-step minimum-wage increase -- initially an increase from $5.15 to $5.85 per hour -- without adding tax help for small businesses that typically employ the greatest number of minimum-wage workers.\nIn the notoriously balky Senate, Democratic leaders have opted to add the tax relief to avoid a fight with business lobbyists and the possibility of a filibuster by Republicans.\n"A minimum-wage hike would likely not pass the Senate without small-business tax relief," said top Finance panel Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa.\nThe Senate's move is likely to cause delays in enacting the minimum-wage bill and has generated hard feelings between House and Senate tax writers. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is guarding his chamber's right under the Constitution to go first on tax bills.\nHouse leaders will ultimately have to accept some tax provisions or risk deadlock, however, and they want to avoid long delays in enacting the minimum-wage increase.