On December 17, President Obama signed H.R. 4853, the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010. The legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 81-19 on December 15 and the House approved on December 17 by a vote of 277-148.

Some of the key provisions of the estimated $858-billion act are: a two-year extension of the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for all income brackets; two-year extension of estate taxes at a rate of 35% and an exemption level of $5 million; one-year extension of the placed in service date for GO Zone low-income housing tax credit properties; two-year extension of the increased rehabilitation tax credit for qualified expenditures in the GO Zone; and one-year extension of tax-exempt bonds for rebuilding properties in the GO Zone.

The Tax Relief Act failed to include funding for the National Housing Trust Fund and omitted the Section 1602 low income housing tax credits (LIHTC) cash grant exchange program, which would have allowed state housing finance agencies to exchange a portion of their tax credit allocation for grant dollars to support local affordable housing.