What the latest tax extenders renewal means for your clients

Here's a break down of Congress' latest moves to adjust the tax code.

On Dec. 15, the House Ways and Means committee came to an agreement on key legislation to renew the so-called “tax extenders”, a series of tax provisions that have lapsed and been reinstated repeatedly over the past decade. The new legislation, the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes (PATH) Act of 2015, will once again retroactively reinstate for 2015 the tax extenders that were renewed and then expired at the end of 2014.

Tax extenders renewed under the PATH Act of 2015

MADE PERMANENT	Qualified charitable distributions from IRA to charity	State & local sales tax deduction	American opportunity tax credit	Enhanced child tax credit	Section 179 expensing
EXTENDED THROUGH 2016	Exclusion of discharged mortgage debt on short scale	Deductibility of mortgage insurance premiums	Above the line education deduction for qualified tuition & fees	50% bonus depreciation (through 2019)
OTHER NOTABLE PROVISIONS	Expansion of Section 529 qualified expenses to include computer & related expenses	Elimination of Section 529 plan aggregation rule	Elimination of 529 ABLE account in-state residency requirement