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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Catcher who wrote (31368)	10/29/1999 3:33:00 PM
From: taxman	Respond to of 74651

Washington, Oct. 29 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate passed an 18-month extension of the corporate research and development tax credit in a move that paves the way for enactment this year of a larger package of tax credit extensions. The Senate and House still must still work out final tax legislation, which Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi said he hopes will include a permanent extension of the research credit. ``I hope that we will make it either permanent or as long as possible,' Lott said. The R&D credit is worth about $2 billion to U.S. companies annually. Companies that rely on it include Microsoft Corp., EDS Corp., Merck & Co., and Johnson & Johnson Inc. The credit applies to expenses for the development of new drugs, high-technology products and medical devices. Representative Bill Archer, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, said last week he would advance a $23.3 billion tax package through the House once the Senate acted. The House bill includes a five-year extension of the R&D credit, at a cost to the government of $10.4 billion. Other Credits Included The Senate bill, passed quickly by voice vote, would also extend the $500 per child tax credit under the alternative minimum tax for working families in 1999 and 2000. The bill includes a $473 million tax credit sought by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bill Roth to benefit poultry producers in Roth's home state of Delaware. Roth's provision extends tax credits for 10 years for biomass electricity produced from chicken waste. The credit is aimed at commercial poultry producers such as Tyson Foods Inc., Purdue Farms and others. The provision also provides tax credits for electricity produced from wind farms. Other extensions in the bill involve the welfare-to-work and work opportunity tax credits, which help offset the cost of training low-income workers. Fast-food chains and hotels favor this tax break. U.S. banks and insurance companies with major overseas operations, such as CitiGroup and American International Group Inc., want extension of a credit that helps offset the expense of conducting some financial activities abroad. The bill, hammered out in a bipartisan compromise within the Finance Committee last week, uses technical tax code shifts to pay for the credits under federal budget law. Under federal budget rules any tax credit is considered an expenditure of revenue and must be paid for with cuts elsewhere. ¸1999 Bloomberg L.P. regards