The major bill that dealt with all of the provisions Congress passed a one year extender on the prior December was the PATH Act.  This bill, in addition to extending various provisions, also added some brand new provisions to the tax law.

For the most part the bill retains those provisions that expired in 2014 with the same rules and limits for 2015.  However the act makes some of these provisions permanent, extends others through 2019 and extenders the remainder through the end of 2015.  As well, some provisions are modified for 2016 and later years.

The President signed the bill into law on December 18, 2015, making that date the “date of enactment” for provisions that reference that date.

The Protecting Americans From Tax Hikes Act of 2015 was passed on Friday as part of a combined tax and spending bill by the Senate on Friday after the spending portion of the bill passed the House earlier that morning.

We are going to put together a summary of the bill that will be available here later, but available now are both the text of the bill and the Joint Committee on Taxation's Technical Explanation of the Bill.

This summary is taken from the summary of the proposed Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2016 that was posted on the website of the House Ways & Means Committee on December 16, 2015. At the time this was prepared the law awaited action in both Houses of Congress, but for the moment it appears very likely this will be the bill that is finally passed.

On December 4, 2015 the President signed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST Act) which contained a few tax provisions, including one reversing a change made in the original temporary transportation bill passed by Congress.

Congress is enacting tax laws in bits and pieces this year, attaching provisions to various unrelated tax bills.  This time the bill to which the new law was attached was the short term highway funding bill passed by Congress just before the August recess (H.R. 3236) and signed into law by the President on July 31, 2015.  This bill makes a number of changes, most notably to the due dates for tax returns.

The new due dates for returns will generally take effect for tax years beginning after December 31, 2015 except for C corporations with June 30 fiscal years where the new due dates will not apply until years beginning after December 31, 2025.

Congress has passed, and the President signed into law on June 29, 2015, the Trade Preferences Extension Act of 2015.  While the bill primarily dealt with non-tax issues, a number of tax provisions were included in the bill, primarily as “offsets” to pay for the cost of other provisions.

As part of the Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (HR 2146) a provision was added liberalizing the ability of certain federal employees to obtain penalty free distributions from governmental plans that are made after the employee reaches age 50.