This document, prepared by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation in consultation with the staffs of the House Committee on Ways and Means and the Senate Committee on Finance, provides an explanation of tax legislation enacted in the 112th Congress.
The explanation follows the chronological order of the tax legislation as signed into law. For each provision, the document includes a description of present law, explanation of the provision, and effective date. Present law describes the law in effect immediately prior to enactment. It does not reflect changes to the law made by the provision or subsequent to the enactment of the provision. For many provisions, the reasons for change are also included.
In some instances, provisions included in legislation enacted in the 112th Congress were not reported out of committee before enactment. As a result, the legislative history of such provisions does not include the reasons for change normally included in a committee report.
In some cases, there is no legislative history for enacted provisions. For such provisions, this document includes a description of present law, explanation of the provision, and effective date, as prepared by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation.
In some cases, technical explanations of certain bills were prepared and published by the staff of the Joint Committee. In those cases, this document follows the technical explanations.
Section references are to the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, (the ‘‘Code’’) unless otherwise indicated.
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FEBRUARY 25, 2013,
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