Thursday, May 11, 2006

HR 4297: A Short Reprieve for Taxpayers

On May 10, the House voted 244-185 to approve the conference report on HR 4297. This tax bill will now go to the Senate (which had previously voted 66-31 to approve a similar measure in February). It includes a two-year extension (through 2010) of preferential rates on capital gains and dividends, as well as a one-year extension on relief from the AMT.

For those who follow this blog, we have commented frequently on these tax issues. The extension is welcome, but this kind of incremental change is troubling nevertheless. It would be far better to have a solid and stable tax base than to have one held hostage by demagoguery every couple of years. But this is a start.

There are also other goodies in this bill, including extension of $100K of expensing for small business, as well as deductions for education that were set to expire in 2005, including the above-the-line deduction for college tuition and a special provision allowing expensing of certain expenditures for teachers.

More to come on this.

Bill text can be found here:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.04297:

The House Ways and Means Committee site is here:
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/ResourceKits.asp?section=2333

EAM

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