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Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Developments Signal AMT Compromise in the Works
Two key developments today point to a possible emerging House-Senate compromise on alternative minimum tax (ATM) legislation.
House Ways and Means chair Charles Rangel (D-NY) Rangel told reporters this afternoon that he would advance a one-year "patch" of the ATM. He added that a more comprehensive and permanent bill to rewrite the AMT that he has been working on for months will probably not face a vote by the full House until next year. "Vetting it would bring us more support than fast-tracking it," Rangel said. In any event, the Senate has made clear that a broader tax bill is a nonstarter in that chamber.
In another important development today, Senate Finance Committee ranking member Charles Grassley (R-IA) said for the first time that he would welcome a compromise that indexed, or "patched" the AMT threshold to protect the vast majority of taxpayers, while raising taxes on the wealthy to defray the budgetary impact, refining his earlier position that "AMT is a phony revenue source. [T]he revenue the AMT would not collect as the result of repeal or reform should not be offset as a condition of the repeal or reform."
Posted by Dana Chasin
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