Tax breaks big and small sweeten financial bailout
By JIM ABRAMS
Associated Press
October 3, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Wind power developers, disaster victims, college students, teachers and millions of taxpayers and businesses stand to see substantial benefits from the tax relief package that lawmakers added to the huge financial rescue plan.
So will more narrowly focused groups, including motor sports racetrack owners, film producers and bicycle commuters.
Virtually all of the tax breaks already exist. But many of them expired Jan. 1 for use in the current tax year, and the others will expire three months from now unless Congress renews them.
The largest group of beneficiaries in what is now the tax portion of the financial rescue bill is about 20 million mainly upper-middle income taxpayers. Without congressional action, the AMT, with originally was supposed to affect only the very rich, would add some $2,000 this year to the tax bill of people mostly earning under $200,000 a year.
Thousands of businesses are waiting for renewal of the research-and-development tax credit, which expired at the end of last year. Without that credit, industry advocates say, high tech, biotech and aerospace companies would have trouble hiring the highly skilled workers needed to compete with foreign competitors.
The Information Technology Association of America reports an $18.5 billion drop in R&D activity since the beginning of the year when the credit lapsed. The R&D credit extension would cost $19 billion over 10 years. The cost of the entire tax portion of the bill is close to $110 billion.
The renewable energy incentives include an eight-year extension of investment credits for solar energy, as well as breaks for wind, geothermal and other alternative sources. The solar industry says extension of the credits through 2016 would produce an extra 440,000 jobs and more than $230 billion in investments.
The measure also has $8 billion in tax breaks for disaster victims, $5 billion for higher education tuition deductions and $400 million in deductions for teachers who buy school supplies with their own money.
There are $3 billion in deductions for residents of states without income taxes that have state and local sales taxes. Extending the deduction would save Texans a projected $1.2 billion a year or an average of $520 per filer claiming the deduction, said Matt Mackowiak, spokesman for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.
There are also some four dozen small provisions. Among them, with projected costs over 10 years:
--Extending an expired provision that gives Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a rebate against excise taxes charged on imported rum. The rebate, at $13.50 per proof gallon, has been in effect since 1999. The cost is $192 million.
--Establishing a new tax credit ranging from $2,500 to $7,500 for purchasers of plug-in electric-drive vehicles. Cost: $758 million.
--Extending tax credits that expired at the end of 2007 for certain domestic corporations involved in American Samoa economic development. Cost: $33 million.
--Extending a credit of up to $10,000 for the training of mine rescue team members. The credit expires at the end of this year and the one-year extension costs $4 million.
>> Continued -- Page 1 2
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|