The American Samoa Tax code has now been amended to fix the tax brackets, exemptions, and personal deductions at 2000 levels.
The amendment passed by the Fono was signed into law by Governor Lemanu on October 6.
When the territory adopted the Internal Revenue Code of 2000 as the American Samoa Income Tax Act, it did not remove language providing for automatic changes to tax brackets, exemptions, personal deductions, and interest rates to mirror those of the IRS code.
This provision has now been deleted with the amendment that the Governor has signed into law.
The new language in the law reads: “Except as amended by this title all adjustments for inflation or cost of living as required by the US Internal Revenue Code including those for tax brackets, exemptions, personal deductions and interest rates are set to the rates in effect on December 31, 2000 in the United States Internal Revenue Code without adjustments, retroactive to October 22, 2001.”
Another change is that the rate of interest on underpayments of tax shall be nine percent per annum.
The amendment went into effect October 6, the date it was signed by the Governor.
