december-law-updates

1. Christmas miracle

Calling it a Christmas miracle, President Obama signed a rewrite of the No Child Left Behind Act. The new version, known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, shifts the decision-making power to state and local districts regarding the ways to improve troubled schools.

This is what Obama has to say about the new law:

“With this bill, we reaffirm that fundamental American ideal that every child — regardless of race, income, background, the ZIP code where they live — deserves the chance to make out of their lives what they will.”

Read the entire story - President Obama Signs Into Law a Rewrite of No Child Left Behind

2. Tighter visa rules

The House of Representatives passed a legislation to tighten the visa waiver program. As per the new legislation, foreign nationals who went to Iraq, Syria or the Sudan in the last 5 years would not be allowed to enter the USA without a visa. The new legislation is applicable to the citizens of the 38 countries who are part of the visa waiver program. This includes European, Pacific Rim countries such as Japan and Australia.

The new legislation aims to remove those countries from the visa waiver program, which gives a damn to the law enforcement and the intelligence community. This is a strong measure since none of the countries would like to be kicked out from the visa waiver program, which allows the foreign nationals to stay in the US for 3 months without a visa.

Read the complete story - House passes legislation to tighten visa waiver restrictions with strong majority

3. Revised bankruptcy forms

On December 1, 2015, existing bankruptcy forms were replaced with revised versions. The reformatted bankruptcy forms have been introduced as part of the forms modernization project. Different case opening forms have been introduced for both non-individual and individual debtors.

It is told that revised forms are easy to understand. Debtors can easily fill out and submit these forms. The new forms are available at - Bankruptcy forms

4. Bigger spending bill and tax breaks:

$1.1 trillion spending bill and $622 billion series of tax breaks were approved by the Senate in December 2015. It’s told that the new legislation would create new job opportunities, stop tax hikes and help people to do their taxes. The new tax package extends the earned income tax credit and enhanced child tax credit permanently, which was boosted by the 2009 economic stimulus. It’s assumed that the massive spending bill would prevent government shutdown in the remaining financial year.

Read the full story - President Obama signs massive spending bill, tax measures into law

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