The Senate Finance Committee’s version of the great American health-care makeover, unveiled today by Sen. Max Baucus, runs to some 200-plus pages, and if adopted in its present form — a very big if — will cost an estimated $856 billion over the next 10 years.

How would the package affect corporate taxes?

Not as much as you might think.

On the plus side, the plan proposes tax credits for small businesses that offer health insurance. But we’re talking really small here — 25 employees or fewer, and an average annual salary of $40,000 or less. Such businesses would be eligible for a credit of up to 35 percent of their contribution to health care insurance in 2011 and 2012. In 2013, the credit rises to a maximum 50 percent for qualified companies that purchase insurance through the “health insurance exchanges” envisaged in the bill (these are state-based Web portals in which insurance providers will present their offerings in a standardized format).

Employers will not be required to offer health insurance, but starting in 2013 companies with more than 50 employees who choose not to provide coverage will have to reimburse the government for the health-care tax credit their workers receive, up to a maximum of $400 per total number of employees.

And that’s about it as far as major, direct impacts on the corporate tax landscape go — unless your organization happens to be a health-care-related business, in which case one or more of the following may apply:

• High-cost insurance excise tax. Insurance companies and plan administrators would have to pay an excise tax of 35 percent on any plans costing more than $8,000 for singles and $21,000 for families. The levy doesn’t apply to plans sold in the individual (nongroup) market.

• Pharmaceutical manufacturers fee. This is an annual flat fee of $2.3 billion allocated by market share and starting in 2010. Companies with sales of $5 million or less are exempted.

• Medical device manufacturers fee. $4 billion by market share, again with a $5 million sales threshold.

• Health insurance provider fee. $6 billion by market share.

• Clinical laboratories fee. $0.75 billion by market share, with exclusion for companies with revenue of $500,000 or less.

The full text of the America’s Healthy Future Act is here, but of course it’s one huge slab of text. The Finance Committee’s news release is a readable summary. ###