Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Tax Legislation in September?

Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game

– "September Song"
(K. Weill, M. Anderson)

Congress slinks out of town Friday, but the legislative troops will be back in five weeks. To the surprise of many, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that the matter of extending the Bush tax cuts – and reforming the soon-to-be-born-again estate tax – will not be ignored until after the November election. Senator Reid plans to get the Senate working on legislation next month.

1 comment:

Jim Gust said...

Pardon my skepticism. I haven't seen statutory language yet, typically this sort of tax legislation will take 3 or 4 months to work through. Starting in September? Someone is just trying to create talking points for the mid-term election.

Increasing the tax rate in the top brackets is easy. But how, exactly, do you extend the 10% tax bracket and marriage penalty relief for some taxpayers and not for others? Either these things exist or they don't.

Oh, by the way, hedge fund managers are still safe with a 15% tax rate on their carried interests. If the Dems can't even get that done, they are simply not serious about tax changes.