Tax Bill Beholds Special Interest Breaks
By MARY DALRYMPLE, AP Tax Writer
WASHINGTON - It started as an effort to eliminate a $5 billion tax break for exporters that irked the European Union (news - web sites). Since then, a tax bill has blossomed into a $170 billion cornucopia of special breaks for the cruise ship industry, former Oldsmobile dealers, NASCAR (news - web sites) and makers of bows and arrows.
Typically, critics say, it is during that dark of night that lawmakers slip such benefits into bills like the one now before the Senate. This time, however, many of the tax breaks were added in full light of day.
The Senate Finance Committee chairman publicly disclosed most of them and folded them into the corporate tax bill, which Republicans are calling the Jumpstart Our Business Strength (JOBS) bill. Then Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, asked colleagues to support it.
"Keep in mind," Grassley said, "that the JOBS bill could be the last train out of town this year." http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040509/ap_on_go_co/corporate_taxes