Seattle Times- The House on Wednesday approved a plan to protect more than 20 million families from an expensive levy called the alternative minimum tax (AMT) while raising taxes on hedge-fund managers and oil companies. But the measure has little hope of Senate passage, Senate leaders said.

The House voted 233-189 to prevent the AMT from expanding next April to ensnare millions of middle-class taxpayers, adding thousands of dollars to their tax bills.

To replace the lost revenue, more than $61.5 billion, the House agreed to more than double the tax rate on income from investment-services partnerships such as hedge funds, to deny oil and gas companies a lucrative deduction for domestic production, and to require credit-card companies to report their transactions with retailers to the Internal Revenue Service, among other provisions.

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