Tuesday, September 16, 2008
WASHINGTON – Senate leaders said Tuesday that they had broken a months-long impasse over a tax break package that would bring billions of dollars in relief to individual and business taxpayers, developers of clean energy resources and people threatened by the alternative minimum tax.
The tax package is one of the last major issues that Congress must address in the last weeks before its scheduled adjournment for the year.
The agreement includes some $17 billion in clean energy tax incentives and provides for a fix, at an estimated cost of $64 billion over 10 years, to shield more than 20 million taxpayers in danger of getting hit by the alternative minimum tax.
The Baucus-Grassley measure would also extend numerous targeted tax breaks that expired at the end of last year or are set to die out at the end of this year. Those include tax breaks for college tuition, state and local sales taxes and research and development for U.S. businesses
The bill extends tax credits for renewable energysuch as solar power, biomass, hydro and geothermal, and offers up to $760 million in tax credits for plug-in vehicles.
Senate Finance Committee: http://finance.senate.gov
