The House voted 233-189 recently to spare more than 20 million taxpayers from getting hit by the alternative minimum tax for another year. The House bill would offset the $61 billion cost by raising taxes on oil companies and hedge fund managers.

The alternative minimum tax was enacted in 1969 to catch a small number of very rich tax dodgers, but the tax now hits many more people because it was never adjusted for inflation.

The offsets in the House-approved package include a measure that would raise $31 billion over 10 years by increasing the tax rate on the share of investment profits received by private equity and hedge fund managers, also known as carried interest.

Managers of private equity and hedge funds are now generally taxed at the 15 percent capital gains rates on the profits they share instead of the 35 percent individual income tax rate that would normally apply to high-income individuals. The bill would tax most of their profit-sharing income at 35 percent.

The bill also would disallow certain deductions that oil and natural gas companies receive for domestic production, bringing in $13.6 billion.

A third provision requires credit card companies to inform the IRS of payments they make to merchants for credit and debit card transactions. That would allow the IRS to better track business income, raising an estimated $9.8 billion.