United States House Committee on Ways and Means

Committee on Ways and Means
Committee on Ways and Means
116th United States Congress
	Committee seal
History
Founded	December 21, 1795
New session started	January 3, 2019
Leadership
Chairman	Richard Neal (D) ; since January 3, 2019
Ranking member	Kevin Brady (R)
Structure
Seats	39 members
Political groups	Majority (24) Democratic (24); Minority (15) Republican (15);
Website
	waysandmeans.house.gov

The Committee on Ways and Means is the chief tax-writing committee of the United States House of Representatives.

Members of the Ways and Means Committee are not allowed to serve on any other House Committee unless they apply for a waiver from their party's congressional leadership.

The U.S. Constitution requires that all bills about taxation must come from in the House of Representatives. Since House rules is that all bills about taxation must go through this committee, the committee is very important, as is its Senate counterpart, the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance.

Recent chairs have included William Reynolds Archer Jr., Bill Thomas, Charles Rangel, Sander Levin, and Dave Camp. On November 4, 2015 Representative Kevin Brady of Texas was chosen to replace Representative Paul Ryan as chairman.