Tax Panels Endorse Special Benefits With Rare Speed : Legislation: Bush has indicated he will sign the bill if more provisions are not tacked on during floor votes.

Operating with rare speed and precision, Senate and House tax-writing committees Monday unanimously endorsed a six-month extension of a dozen popular tax breaks scheduled to expire Dec. 31. Congress was expected to give its final approval this week.

President Bush has indicated that he would sign the legislation if no additional provisions are added before the measure reaches his desk.

As a result, tax credits for low-income rental housing, for business research and for health insurance expenses for self-employed persons are likely to be extended once again, at least for the first half of 1992.

Other provisions would continue the deductibles for company-paid education and legal expenses, exempt mortgage revenue bonds from federal taxation and extend tax credits for solar and geothermal energy projects. Another program to give tax credits to business firms for hiring the disadvantaged also would be continued under the bill.

The cost of the credits--estimated at $3.1 billion over the next five years--would be offset by an increase in quarterly income tax payments by corporations with annual taxable income of more than $1 million.

Instead of paying 90% of their current tax liability, such large corporations would be required to base estimated tax payments on 93% of their current liability in 1992; the percentage would rise to 94% in 1993-94 and 95% thereafter.

Identical bills were swiftly approved by the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee with the understanding that Democratic and Republican leaders would resist any efforts to turn the legislation into a “Christmas tree” of tax benefits.

Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) warned in advance that he would allow a vote only if all 100 senators agreed beforehand to accept the bill as it was without attempting to change it.

While Congress has balked at general tax reduction this year, the package of so-called “extenders” generated powerful bipartisan support and seemed likely to sail through both chambers without significant opposition, despite prolonged deadlocks over other measures in the final days of the 1991 session.

The House is expected to take up the bill today with the Senate acting shortly thereafter.

Widespread interest in the measure was shown when scores of lobbyists who supported the extension of the tax breaks gathered in the hearing room as the House Ways and Means panel acted on the legislation.

“Welcome to the season of giving,” said Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the committee, to the turnout of tax advocates. “I haven’t seen you since last year at this time.”

But Rostenkowski warned that his panel would decide early next year whether to make the tax preferences a permanent part of the tax code or drop them entirely.