Cliff bill helps NASCAR?

Published: January 3, 2013 

By now, we’ve heard all about the big stuff in the fiscal cliff bill that passed on Tuesday.

The Bush administration tax cuts will become permanent for all individual income below $400,000 (and family income below $450,000). The sequester spending cuts will be delayed two months. And so on.

But the bill also includes everything from electric scooters to racetracks to taking the subway to work. Most of these tax breaks already existed — they’re just being extended for another year or two, at a total cost of roughly $77 billion.

Here are 10 of the more curious tax provisions in the legislation:

$9 BILLION FOR ‘WALL STREET BANKS AND MAJOR MULTINATIONALS’

Section 322 of the bill allows manufacturers and banks to defer taxes when they engage in a special type of financial transactions known as “active financing.” The break costs $9 billion per year, and critics claim it encourages firms to create jobs overseas. But it’s a lobbying priority for companies such as General Electric and JPMorgan, which say it helps them compete abroad.

There is a ton of other costly business tax breaks in the deal, too, from tax credits for research and development to bonus depreciation (which studies have found are ineffective at stimulating the economy).

RUM TAX FOR PUERTO RICO

Congress levies a $13.50 per-gallon excise tax on rum produced in or imported to the United States. Most of that money is sent to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to support their rum industries. In 2009, this tax raised some $547 million. The cliff deal extends this arrangement another year. (Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative in the House, Pedro Pierluisi, thinks this tax set-up is too favorable to rum distillers.)

CHEAPER OFFICE SPACE FOR GOLDMAN SACHS

Section 328 extends tax-exempt financing for the “Liberty Zone,” the area around the former World Trade Center in New York City, for another year. This provision was supposed to help fund reconstruction after Sept. 11. Yet a recent Bloomberg investigation found that the bonds have mostly helped finance new luxury apartments, not to mention the construction of the new Goldman Sachs headquarters. Developers say the bonds have helped revitalize downtown Manhattan, but there’s a fierce debate over how they’ve been used.

HELP NASCAR BUILD RACETRACKS

The so-called NASCAR loophole allows anyone who builds a racetrack to receive a small tax benefit through accelerated depreciation. This tax break cost roughly $43 million the past two years and will get extended for another year. Supporters claim the break is necessary so that NASCAR can compete on a level playing field with theme parks.

COAL: ALTERNATIVE ENERGY?

The fiscal cliff deal has a ton of provisions for clean energy — notably, it extends a key tax credit for wind power for one year, thus preventing the U.S. wind industry from downsizing next year. (That credit will cost about $1.2 billion per year for 10 years.)

But the production tax credit isn’t just for renewable energy sources like wind. There’s also a provision, section 406, to keep subsidizing coal produced on Native American lands at about $2 per ton. This is not a huge deal (it will cost about $1 million), but it’s a reminder that not all of the clean-energy provisions in the bill are entirely green.

PLUG-IN ELECTRIC SCOOTERS

For years, Congress has been trying to promote electric cars through various tax breaks and subsidies. But what about electric scooters? Section 403 extends a credit for “2- or 3-wheeled plug-in electric vehicles.” The New York Observer reports that e-bikes are running rampant in New York City, used for everything from Chinese food deliveries to expensive joyrides. Problem? They’re illegal in the state.

RAILROAD REPAIR

Section 306 will extend a hefty tax credit to railroads for maintenance work. Congress originally passed this credit because there was a worry that many of the hundreds of “short line railroads” would abandon their small sections of track, which would fracture the national shipping network. This credit costs about $165 million per year and will survive another year.

SUBSIDIZE HOLLYWOOD FILMS

The fiscal cliff bill renews “special expensing rules for certain film and television productions,” at a cost of some $75 million per year. Studios can deduct up to $15 million of their costs if more than three-fourths of the movie’s production takes place in the United States. (They can get up to $20 million in deductions if they produce the film in a low-income community.)

CRACK DOWN ON INMATE TAX FRAUD

The Internal Revenue Service has long worked with state and federal prisons to crack down on fraud among prisoners who are filing tax returns. But as more states have been contracting out their jails and prisons to for-profit companies, the IRS has had difficulty sharing data with private contractors. Section 209 allows the IRS to share its files with private prisons.

INCENTIVES TO TAKE MASS TRANSIT

For the past year, the tax code has subsidized driving to work over taking transit. If you drove, your employer could cover up to $240 per month in parking expenses tax-free. But, if you took the bus, your employer could only cover $125 per month tax-free. The two benefits were set at equal levels for a brief period after the stimulus bill, and they’ve just been set at equal levels again for 2012 and 2013. There’s a little evidence that this change induces more people to take transit to work. This item will cost $220 million.

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