Katrina tax relief update

HR 3768, the Katrina tax relief bill, has passed both houses of Congress and has bounced back to the Senate for what's expected to be a quick reconciliation process... Treasury Secretary Snow's comment here... Also, the AP coverage here draws attention to a Sep. 19 Congressional Research Service study that among other things noted two important housing provisions then included in the bill: allowing taxpayers who charitably house disaster victims to claim them as dependents, and allowing use of mortgage revenue bonds to assist people other than first-time homebuyers. The personal exemption provision seems to have remained in the House-passed version of the bill. Unclear what's become of the mortgage revenue bond language; to be certain on that, best check back in a few days on the the HR 3768 "Summary and Status" link that begins this paragraph. The Heritage Foundation posted its own analysis of the bill today. [UPDATE 9/22: The National Multi Housing Council has posted a summary of the bill for apartment owners and a full legislative analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation. (Note: After downloading this latter document, Macintosh users may have to change the "CFM" file extension to "PDF" in order to open it.) It turns out that, yes, the mortgage revenue bond measure stayed in. For details go to Page 39 of the legislative analysis document, numbered as "page 36."] (Note that the HR 3768 tax relief bill is distinct from Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones' HR 3769, the bill with proposed LIHTC provisions that was mentioned on this site yesterday.)

By the way, reports of the Congressional Research Service on a wide variety of topics seem to be available on this State Dept. site. Recent new reports include several on Hurricane Katrina's economic effects, as well as evaluations and recommendations on the federal response to the disaster. Items of especial possible interest include "Tax Policy Options After Hurricane Katrina," which among other topics does address incentives for building affordable housing in the disaster recovery.

Further on the subject of tax relief, the IRS has generated a handy reference page with links to its Katrina announcements. As of this writing the newest such announcement is a press release that in turn links to several substantive tax relief guidance documents, together with the new Notice 2005-73, which "summarizes and clarifies" some of the previous Katrina-related tax relief announcements. This notice does not address housing per se but may nevertheless be useful to taxpayers with property in the affected areas.