Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2007, H. R. 3996, Extends AMT Patch for 2007
On December 26, 2007, President Bush signed the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2007 which extends/increases the 2007 AMT exemption amount to $66,250 for married couples filing jointly and $44,350 for single persons (AMT exemption amounts are reduced or eliminated at higher income amounts) and extends the provision allowing non-refundable personal credits against the AMT. This temporary fix followed an intense battle with Senate Republicans in which Rep. Charles Rangel fought, but lost, an effort to increase taxes to offset the estimated $50 billion tax revenue loss generated by the AMT extension. The issue will likely be on the legislative agenda again in 2008.
Text of S. 2369 Denying Patents for Tax Planning Inventions Now Available, S. 2369, http://thomas.loc.gov.
The text of S. 2369 amending Title 35 of the United States Code to disallow patents for a tax-planning invention is now available at http://thomas.loc.gov/. The Bill defines a tax-planning invention as "a plan, strategy, technique, scheme, process, or system that is designed to reduce, minimize, avoid, or defer, or has, when implemented, the effect of reducing, minimizing, avoiding or deferring a taxpayer's tax liability or is designed to facilitate compliance with tax laws, but does not include tax preparation software and other tools or systems used solely to prepare tax or information returns."