Tax Legislation Update
by Craig Jennings, 9/25/2008
When Congress is not figuring out the best way to give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's golfing buddies $700 billion, their attention is focused on tax legislation. Specifically, the House and the Senate are working on coming to agreement on several tax code areas: a patch for the AMT, (renewable) energy tax extenders, non-energy tax extenders, and tax relief for disaster victims. The two chambers are at odds over several issues, but the biggest is if these tax cuts should be paid for. Here's the lay of the land as of Thursday morning:
- AMT Patch
- Senate: On Tuesday, passed 93-2, a $120 billion tax package (HR 6049) includes a $61.8 billion non-offset AMT patch
- House: Approved Wednesday (393-30) a standalone bill (HR 7005) that would patch the AMT without offsets
- Energy Extenders
- Senate: Included a fully offset $17 billion set of tax cuts in the package passed on Tuesday
- House: Will offer a fully offset package today, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Tax Act of 2008
- Non-Energy Extenders
- Senate: Also passed in the bill passed Tuesday, offset by $25 billion in revenue raisers, a $59 billion package of non-energy related tax cuts
- House: Will offer a fully offset package today, the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Tax Act of 2008
- Disaster Relief
- Senate: Included in HR 6049 (passed Tuesday), almost $9 billion for victims of the Midwestern flooding and of Hurricane Ike
- House: Passed Wednesday, by 419-4, HR 7006 that would provide about $9 billion in tax relief for victims all federally-declared disasters
