Mmmmm... sausages
Only in America:
On Apr. 19, the House passed H.R.1906, the “Estimated Tax Safe Harbor Act,” by a vote of 216 to 203. The bill amends Code Sec. 6654 to adjust the estimated tax prior year payment safe harbor for higher income individuals from 110% to 110.1% but only for individuals with adjusted gross income greater than $5 million (greater than $2.5 million for married persons filing separately). H.R.1906 was used as a sweetener to gain passage of H.R.1905, the “District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act," which would give the taxpayers of the District of Columbia a vote in Congress.Don't ask me what one has to do with the other. I have no idea.
| Posted at 5:48 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (8)
As I understand it (and I probably don't), the tax change was made to pay for the additional costs of the Utah seat. The one-tenth of a percent coming in early should generate enough "interest" (or save enough "interest") to cover that.
Posted by Lono | April 20, 2007 6:36 PM
D.C. political status has always seemed ironic for a country whose founding principles and history include a revolt against taxation without representation. As for the early "revenue gain" theory of 1906, I guess everybody thinks those big incomes are just going to keep going up.
Posted by Allan L. | April 20, 2007 7:49 PM
It's about condos. DC's condo boom is even bigger than Portland, and they're putting streetcars in as well. Pretty much everything that doesn't make sense can probably be traced back to condos and streetcars!
Posted by DE | April 20, 2007 9:22 PM
It's about seats in the senate. Look at the demographics and voting patterns and then think about which party has the most to gain.
Posted by RonaldM | April 21, 2007 10:22 AM
H.R. 1905 is only about D.C. having a representative in the House -- it doesn't cover anything related to the Senate.
As for the provisions being unrelated, that's pretty common in the 'sausage-making' process. I worked for several years as a legislative historian in D.C. It was always a challenge to watch for changes being made to existing laws by simply dropping an extra section into a totally unrelated bill. Sometimes (for the paranoid among us) there really is a hidden relationship -- but often it's just a way to get more votes for the main bill by adding on something that other Representatives will support.
Posted by bbc | April 21, 2007 10:48 AM
But bbc, do you think this is totally separate from the effort for full statehood for the District? Given the history is it unreasonable to think that this is just the first step?
Posted by RonaldM | April 21, 2007 11:06 AM
It's about condos. DC's condo boom is even bigger than Portland, and they're putting streetcars in as well. Pretty much everything that doesn't make sense can probably be traced back to condos and streetcars!
Ha! Ha! That's a good one. Buh-bye.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 21, 2007 1:43 PM
RonaldM,
I don't think it's totally separate from the statehood movement. I haven't followed that issue closely for a while but many of those involved in the push for statehood didn't want any incremental step -- they wanted statehood or nothing. People in that camp think this bill is a compromise that won't get them to full statehood. Others think it's a step in the right direction.
There's also a potential issue with this bill in that some scholars believe it's unconstitutional to change the District's representation by any means other than a constitutional amendment to make it a state. The Washington Post has had several articles about all this in the last week - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902849.html
It looks like the reason that tax provision is in there has to do with the new policies of the Democratic Congress. Legislation that is going to expend money is supposed to include a way to increase revenue. As someone else mentioned, the Utah seat that's also included in this bill would have some substantial costs.
Posted by bbc | April 21, 2007 2:36 PM