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WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee plans to consider as early as next week a roughly $15 billion package of tax incentives for small businesses and infrastructure projects.

Details of the package are outlined in a discussion draft, a copy of which was obtained by Dow Jones Newswires and confirmed by a Democratic aide.

At the center of the package will be a proposal from President Barack Obama to exempt 100% of investments in small-business stock from capital gains tax. Currently, 75% of gains from such stock are excluded from capital gains tax.

Also part of the package in its current form is an extension of tax credit bonds for local infrastructure, and a federal cash grant program to states for construction of low-income housing units, according to the draft circulated among committee members this week.

The bill could be formally unveiled as early as Friday. It is the latest effort by congressional Democrats to take aim at pervasive unemployment, and follows two separate stimulus measures that are still working their way through the legislative process.

The tax credit bonds, created last year by Congress and dubbed "Build America Bonds," have been popular with state and local governments. Critics of the program, including Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), charge that the bond program has delivered huge fees to Wall Street banks.

The provision under discussion by the Ways and Means Committee would extend the bond program through June 2012. Under current law, it would expire at the end of this year.

Obama this year proposed making the tax credit bonds permanent, but reducing the federal subsidy that allows local issuers to offer investors a higher return.

Also part of the discussion draft is a provision to curb Internal Revenue Service penalties on small businesses that invested in certain tax shelters. The draft proposal also includes measures to encourage the use of private activity bonds by excluding bond proceeds from the alternative minimum tax.

House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D., Mich.) has indicated that following action on the small-business bill, he wants to consider a package of tax incentives for the renewable energy industry.

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