The Wacky Ways of Washington

The reason I haven't posted much is that, once again, I've been crazy busy at work. (This is unlikely to change any time soon). One of the things I've been focused on is a change in the tax code that we've been trying to get put into the stimulus spendulus bill.

(My thoughts on that horrid piece of legislation: It will not help revive the economy but will saddle us and our children with having to pay for wasteful spending for years to come). Oink.

I will spare you the boring details of the amendment save to say that it relates to something called Cancellation of Indebtedness Income tax (CODI) on "deemed exchanges".

A few weeks ago we met in Washington to plead our case with senior Treasury people. While they got the joke, they told us it needed a legislative, not regulatory, fix and recommended that we try the stimulus bill. We wrote to a few key Senators and got some coverage in what's called the "tax press" (can you believe there is such a thing?).

Then the fun began.

The amendment that we were looking for started bouncing in and out of every succeeding version of the Senate bill. On the morning of the Senate vote, it was in. We found out that the version that the Senate voted on later that day did not have the amendment.

We were not happy.

Then, on Thursday, we found out that even though the amendment had not been in the House version nor the Senate version, it ended up in the final version agreed to in the House/Senate Conference. It is now part of the 1000 page bill that Obamarama will sign on Tuesday. I have to admit, I have no idea what happened or why and I don't understand how a provision that wasn't in either bill gets put in in conference. But I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm taking full credit for it.

(The good news is that unlike most of the rest of the bill this amendment actually will help stimulate the economy).