[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 22053-22054]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             TAX EXTENDERS

  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I rise to address two matters 
that will be taken up by the Senate in this lameduck session. The first 
will be after we come back from the Thanksgiving holiday. We will be 
taking up a tax bill that will include a group of what we call tax 
extenders. These are

[[Page 22054]]

tax breaks that are in existing law which are running out of time. They 
are going to cease to exist by the 1st of the year, unless we extend 
these tax breaks. One of those tax breaks is very important to our 
State of Florida. In fact, six States in this Union do not have a 
personal income tax at the State level. Whereas, those 44 States that 
do have the personal income tax are able to deduct that State income 
tax in the calculation of their Federal income tax, in those six States 
that do not have the State income tax, they have no such deduction. But 
their main revenue stream is a State sales tax.
  The deduction of that State sales tax has been a major help to 
constituents in those six States, including my State of Florida. It has 
saved, for example, the people of the State of Florida $750 million per 
year in Federal income taxes by being able to deduct their Florida 
State sales tax.
  It is my understanding that this is all worked out; that, in fact, we 
are going to be able to extend all of these tax extenders and that it 
will be done in the week of the lameduck session when we come back 
after the Thanksgiving holiday. That, of course, is enormously 
important.
  I had a hand, along with Senator Hutchison of Texas, in passing that 
bill to begin with, but that bill was effective for 2 years. That 2 
years is about to expire at the end of this calendar year. So we 
certainly need that extended.

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