New Corporate tax bill spends 136B to solve 50 B problem!
The extra taxes imposed by the EU amount to 300 million (on wood, jewelry, paper and clothing, etc) and they wanted to restore the 50B tax break that US corps had lost.
But they then ad a load of special interest items - indeed everything Bush asked for - and nothing that Dems objected to got removed (the Food and Drug Administration is given authority to regulate, but not ban, tobacco products - meaning they have no authority! - and it is a separate bill, so it will not pass House!)
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ta... Senate Passes Big Tax Breaks
A bill designed to resolve a trade dispute with Europe also cuts $136 billion in levies on businesses. Bush is expected to sign it.
By Warren Vieth
Times Staff Writer
October 12, 2004
WASHINGTON — A bill that was conceived as a way to resolve a trade dispute with Europe but became a sanctuary for special-interest tax provisions won final congressional approval from the Senate on Monday.
The $136-billion bill will repeal an export tax subsidy that the World Trade Organization had ruled illegal. But Congress, heavily lobbied by business, added a host of complexities and preferences for politically connected industries, from a $10-billion buyout of tobacco growers to a $4-million tax write-off for Alaskan whaling boat captains.<snip>
Sure enough, the legislation will replace the export subsidy with an across-the-board $77-billion corporate tax cut for manufacturers and a $43-billion reduction for companies operating overseas. The bill will lower the corporate tax rate for manufacturers from 35% to 32%.
Among the biggest winners was General Electric Co., which stands to save as much as $8 billion over 10 years on its foreign operations, according to Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee. Before they were finished, lawmakers went far beyond the original game plan, adding scores of special tax breaks for makers of bows and arrows, operators of NASCAR race tracks and importers of ceiling fans, among others."All these little parochial provisions — 276 of them — have been festering around Washington for years, in some cases decades," said Keith Ashdown, policy director for Taxpayers for Common Sense, which lobbies against pork-barrel politics. "They finally found a home."
One of the biggest was a $10-billion buyout of the holders of coveted tobacco quotas — in essence, permission from the government to grow certain amounts of tobacco. The quotas, established during the Depression, have become assets that entitle the holders to benefit from the federal price support program for tobacco.<snip>
Bush's special interest provisions in new corporate tax bill
Of course the EU will now lift about $200 million in levies on U.S. farm products. WOW!
<snip> cut taxes for manufacturing companies and other key businesses in the state, including movie studios.<snip>
lower the tax rate for manufacturers to 32% from 35% and broaden the types of businesses eligible for the lower rate to include such nontraditional manufacturing operations as construction companies, engineering and architectural firms, film and music ventures and oil and gas producers. <snip>
5.25% for one year tax rate for The bill offers a big break for multinationals that want to bring into the U.S. profits (undistributed earnings) they make overseas. As it is, they pay the U.S. 35% on that money.<snip>
(pro sports owners get a single sentence in the 633-page bill, that allows owners to write off the full value of their franchises over 15 years - a $2 billion windfall that adds about 5 percent to the value of professional franchises; under current tax law, they can write off only the value of players' contracts over three to five years. So at least they get to write off the lobbying cost to get that franchise and that taxpayer-sponsored stadiums to play in!
A three-year extension of a provision allowing small businesses to deduct up to $100,000 a year in capital expenditures — THE HUMMER SUV DEDUCTION -which had been set to revert to $25,000 at the end of 2005.<snip> The new provision would limit most first-year write-offs to $25,000, so it is "raising $372 million over the next three years" - I love GOP speak)
special breaks for the fishing-gear and the electric-fan industries and a $10-billion buyout for tobacco farmers. <snip>
if at least 75% of a movie's production costs are spent domestically, then a producer can immediately depreciate certain expenses rather than amortize them over 10 years, as the law currently requires.<snip>
1,000 wineries get a three-year suspension of a Civil War-era tax of $1,000 a year on alcoholic beverage makers. <snip>
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