Tax Cut Bill Signed By Obama Packed With Obscure Stocking Stuffers For Businesses

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Tax Cut Bill Signed By Obama Packed With Obscure Stocking Stuffers For Businesses

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/24/tax-cut-bill-signed-by-ob_n_801171.html



WASHINGTON — The massive new tax bill signed into law by President Barack Obama is filled with all kinds of holiday stocking stuffers for businesses: tax breaks for producing TV shows, grants for putting up windmills, rum subsidies for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

There is even a tax break for people who buy race horses.

Millions of homeowners, however, might feel like they got a lump of coal. Homeowners who don't itemize their deductions will lose a tax break for paying local property taxes.

The business tax breaks are part of sweeping legislation that extends Bush era tax cuts for families at every income level through 2012. Obama signed the $858 billion measure a week ago. It also provides a new payroll tax cut for wage earners and extends jobless benefits to the long-term unemployed.

Most of the business tax breaks – about 50 in all – are part of a package that expires each year, creating uncertainty for tax planners but lots of business for lobbyists. Many of these tax breaks have been around for years but expired at the end of 2009 because lawmakers couldn't agree how to pay for them.

The new law extends most of them through 2011, some through 2012. They will be paid for with borrowed money.

Nearly 1,300 businesses and trade groups formed a coalition urging Congress to extend the business tax breaks. Others lobbied for specific provisions, including a generous tax credit for research and development and subsidies to produce alternative energy.

There is a generous tax break for banks and insurance companies that invest overseas, a tax credit for railroad track maintenance, more generous write-offs for upgrading motorsport race tracks, and increased deductions for businesses that donate books and computers to public schools and libraries.

[MichiganVote]

1. Borrowed money...just like the two unpaid for wars.

[grahamhgreen]

9. Really, it's not a tax cut, it's a tax deferment that we will have to pay w/ interest. nt

[Canuckistanian]

2. So much for "fiscal conservatism"

But, this is what the conservatives wanted.

[msongs]

3. and he got it lol nt

[ShockediSay]

4. breaks for banks & Inscos that invest overseas !?!?!

That's the last thing we need.

That's one thing that caused the Great Recession.

Banks and Insurance Companies need to be taxed more,
not less, especially if they are not investing in
American Business. If any banks should have tax breaks,
it's those community banks that lend to small businesses
and creditworthy home buyers.

[FormerDittoHead]

5. I wish I could say I was surprised... The middle class is fucked. n/t

[Zhade]

6. Kick/rec

Sold us out again.

[Jim Warren]

7. The devil

is in the details and you always find out about them way past the fact.

[SmileyRose]

8. So they bitched and moaned about small business - then gave ALL the goodies to big business.

Shocked - shocked I tell ya.