Congress finally passed” The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015”. This was the long anticipated bill that will finally extend more than 50 tax provisions that have left tax payers in doubt over the last several years.

For the last several years, taxpayers have faced great uncertainty determining whether they can depend on tax incentives to help them lower taxes. These have become known as the “51 Tax Extenders”. Last December, Congress extended most of these provisions for one year retroactively to the beginning of 2014, but not going forward, so they expired again at the end of 2014.

Just before Christmas, Congress finally passed the “tax extenders” for 2014. These “extenders” refer to a set of about 60 tax incentives that are scheduled to lapse after a certain number of years. We have seen Congress act at the last minute three times in the past: October 2008, December 2010 and January 2013.