Approving the Renewal of Import Restrictions Contained in the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003

Floor Speech

APPROVING THE RENEWAL OF IMPORT RESTRICTIONS CONTAINED IN THE BURMESE FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2003 -- (Senate - July 24, 2007)

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By Mr. GRASSLEY (for himself, Mrs. Hutchison, Mr. Bingaman, Mr. Allard, and Mr. Brownback):

S. 1855. A bill to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide relief to individuals from the penalty for failure to pay estimated taxes on amounts attributable to the alternative minimum tax in cases where the taxpayer was not subject to the alternative minimum tax in the preceding year; to the Committee on Finance.

Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, right now millions of Americans don't know whether they should be paying an estimated tax because Congress hasn't passed AMT relief. In other words, there are many taxpayers who will be facing a big tax bill if we don't pass AMT relief. By law, many of these taxpayers should be paying estimated tax right now based on the fact that as the law is today, they are subject to the AMT. In order to these taxpayers, I am introducing the AMT Penalty Protection Act of 2007.

Under this legislation, in computing tax for purpose of the penalties in the
tax code dealing with estimated tax, a taxpayer would be permitted to disregard the alternative minimum tax if the individual was not liable for the alternative minimum tax for the preceding tax year.

So if you didn't have to pay AMT last year we aren't going to penalize you if you don't file estimated taxes for AMT this year.

Just because Congress can't do its job, doesn't mean the taxpayer should be punished.

I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows:

S. 1855

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