Tax News

CCH (cch.taxgroup.com) reports:

The Senate on June 21 agreed to limit debate on the comprehensive energy bill (HR 6) but failed to do the same with the related tax title, rendering the $32-billion package of tax incentives all but dead for the time being as the chamber moves ahead with plans to pass the overall bill before the July 4 recess.
Senate lawmakers agreed to invoke cloture on the Senate substitute to HR 6
by a 61-to-32 margin, but the tax title fell three votes short of the necessary 60-vote threshold, 57 to 36, leaving the package in limbo until Senate Democratic leaders decide the best way to move the package that riled large oil companies and their supporters in the Senate.
"In voting against tax incentives that would spur investment in renewable fuels, clean-coal technology and energy-efficient vehicles, not to mention consumer incentives for buying green products and cars, the Grand Oil Party has sided yet again with the industry that fills Republican campaign coffers as those same oil companies drill deeper into Americas' pockets," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who vowed to move the tax package with another vehicle.
One possibility is the recently approved House Ways and Means energy tax title, the Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation Bill of 2007 (HR 2776) (TAXDAY, 2007/06/21, C.1), which is much smaller and does not tax large oil companies on oil leases in order to raise revenue for its $15.2-billion price tag, but would deny Code Sec. 199
tax benefits for income attributable to the domestic production of oil and natural gas.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., immediately released a statement saying he will attempt to bring the tax package back during the allotted 30 hours of debate on the Senate substitute to HR 6, but Senate leadership all but nixed that plan. "It's dead," responded a staff member from the office of Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin, D-Ill., when asked if the tax title could be revived during debate on the underlying energy bill.
By Jeff Carlson, CCH News Staff
Baucus Comment on Energy Tax Incentives Vote