The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

Revenue Act of 1978, , amended the Internal Revenue Code by reducing individual

income tax An income tax is a tax imposed on individuals or entities (taxpayers) in respect of the income or profits earned by them (commonly called taxable income). Income tax generally is computed as the product of a tax rate times the taxable income. Tax ...

es (widening

tax bracket Tax brackets are the divisions at which tax rates change in a progressive tax system (or an explicitly regressive tax system, though that is rarer). Essentially, tax brackets are the cutoff values for taxable income—income past a certain poin ...

s and reducing the number of tax rates), increasing the personal exemption from $750 to $1,000, reducing corporate tax rates (the top rate falling from 48 percent to 46 percent), increasing the standard deduction from $3,200 to $3,400 (joint returns), increasing the capital gains exclusion from 50 percent to 60 percent (effectively reducing the rate of taxation on realized capital gains to 28%), and repealing the non-business exemption for state and local

gasoline Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organi ...

taxes.

Legislative history

The Act was passed by the

95th Congress The 95th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, DC from January 3, 1977, ...

and was signed into law by

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...

on November 6, 1978.

Provisions

Flexible spending accounts and the 401(k) section of the IRS code

The Act also established

Flexible spending account In the United States, a flexible spending account (FSA), also known as a flexible spending arrangement, is one of a number of tax-advantaged financial accounts, resulting in payroll tax savings. One significant disadvantage to using an FSA is th ...

s, which allow employees to receive reimbursement for medical expenses from untaxed income dollars. The Act added section

401(k) In the United States, a 401(k) plan is an employer-sponsored, defined-contribution, personal pension (savings) account, as defined in subsection 401(k) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Periodical employee contributions come directly out of the ...

to the Internal Revenue Code.See section 135(a) of the Revenue Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 95-600, 92 Stat. 2763, 2785 (Nov. 6, 1978), redesignating former subsection (k) as subsection (l) and adding new subsection (k), effective for plan years beginning after December 31, 1979. This latter provision, intended to limit executive compensation, was later used to develop one of the primary tax-advantaged retirement savings vehicles in use in the United States.

Notes

External links

Full text of the Act
{{US_tax_acts United States federal taxation legislation 1978 in law