Sen. Orrin Hatch on Monday strongly denied that Sen. Bob Corker pushed for a measure in the final GOP tax plan that would personally help the Tennessee Republican and President Donald Trump.

Hatch, a Republican from Utah and head of the Senate's tax-writing committee, called it "categorically false" to imply that lawmakers added the provision at the last minute to appease Corker. In a letter to Corker, Hatch wrote that the provision was included in the House-passed bill and said his colleague did not personally advocate for it.

"It takes a great deal of imagination — and likely no small amount of partisanship — to argue that a provision that has been public for over a month, debated on the floor of the House of Representatives, included in a House-passed bill, and identified by [Joint Committee on Taxation] as an issue requiring a compromise between conferees is somehow a covert and last-minute addition to the conference report," Hatch wrote in the letter dated Monday.

The piece of the joint GOP plan related to so-called pass-through businesses gives a tax break to some people in the real estate business. Under those entities, owners pay individual tax rates on business income. Corker, who will not run for re-election next year, owns properties in Tennessee.