United States · Amendment · HAMDT

HAMDT 636 (109th)

An amendment in the nature of a substitute to extend for one year all expiring provisions contained in Title I of H.R. 4297, including the deduction for state and local retail sales taxes, the deduction for college tuition expenses, tax incentives for the District of Columbia and Indian reservations, 15 year depreciation period for leasehold and restaurant improvements, qualified zone academy bonds, the Brownfields cleanup tax incentive, and several other more minor provisions. The amendment makes no substantive changes to the expiring provisions, except for the research credit, work opportunity tax credit, and welfare-to-work tax credit, which are expanded to match the Thomas bill. In addition to theone-year extensions that are retained by the amendment, the amendment also would extend the temporary provision that terminates at the end of this calendar year and that provides a larger earned income tax credit for the families of those serving in Iraq. In addition the amendment would totally eliminate all individual minimum tax liability for individuals with incomes below $200,000 for joint returns, $100,000 in other cases, for taxable year 2006. This provision would reduce the number of AMT taxpayers from 19 million under current law for taxable year 2006 to slightly over 3 million. The amendment does not ex.end tax benefits that do not terminate at the endof this calendar year such as the lower rates on capital gains and dividends. The alternative also includes a broad package of additional provisions that were added by the full Committee. The provisions of the alternative described above would cost approximately $43 billion. The cost is offset by taking back a portion of the recent tax cuts from individuals with annual incomes over $1 million for joint returns, $500,000 for other returns.