|
House-Passed AMT Relief Bill Faces Uncertain Future
By a vote of 226 to 193, the House on Dec. 12 approved legislation (H.R. 4351) that would provide a one-year patch to the alternative minimum tax, effectively keeping it from reaching an additional 20 million taxpayers in the 2007 tax year.
The bill includes revenue offsets to pay for the measure but differs in one key respect from a similar measure passed by the chamber on Nov. 9. In a victory for multifamily home builders, the revised legislation no longer includes a provision to tax “carried interest” to pay for the bill.
NAHB lobbied intensively to remove this controversial measure from the legislation because it would have imposed a multi-billion dollar tax increase on real estate at a time when the industry was already struggling with a serious slowdown in the marketplace.
The fate of the bill remains uncertain because Republican senators and President Bush still insist on a stand-alone AMT relief bill without any offsetting spending cuts or tax increases, arguing that the excessive AMT revenue was never intended to be collected in the first place. They are at odds with House Democratic leaders, who insist that pay-as-you-go budget rules are essential to enforcing fiscal discipline and not adding further to the national debt.
The White House also issued a new veto threat, warning that the failure of Congress to move quickly will cause the IRS to delay millions of tax refunds because the agency will be unable to process the necessary administrative changes in a timely manner.
At this point, it remains uncertain which chamber will compromise first, or whether the deadlock between the House and Senate will ultimately result in no AMT relief for American taxpayers.
NAHB continues to urge Congress to enact swift passage of AMT relief and ensure that the carried interest proposal stays out of any final bill because of its damaging impact on real estate development.
To view the bill, click here and type H.R. 4351 in the box in the upper center screen.
For more information, e-mail Greg Brown at NAHB or call him at 800-368-5242 x8421.
|
