Max Baucus Bill Put Rum and Hollywood Tax Credits in Final Fiscal Cliff Decision

A host of tax credits were approved as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations on Monday night. Some of the beneficiaries included Bacardi Rum, General Electric, and Morgan Stanley.

Senior Political Columnist for the Washington Examiner, Timothy Carney argues that "part of the point of the bill was to cut into the deficit, but a lot of these tax credits are less like tax breaks and more like spending, where the money gets handed to companies regardless of whether they owe taxes.

The extra tax credits were part of a bill that came out of the Senate Finance Committee chaired by Max Baucus. The bill known as The Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012  made it out of committee, but never to the House floor.

"The White House grabbed Baucus' bill I'm told," explains Carney "and said 'we want this to be in the fiscal cliff legislation.' So you had this strange situation where it's the eleventh hour, legislation must pass to avert the fiscal cliff and their voting to renew algae subsidies because that had been in the bill Max Baucus passed back in August."

Nearly 76 billion dollars worth of industry specific tax credits were extended in the fiscal cliff deal known as the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, the final wording after Title II  is almost exactly the same as Baucus' Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act.

To read Carney's original article breaking this story please read "Tim Carney: How corporate tax credits got in the 'cliff' deal" as it was originally published in the Washington Examiner.