April 14, 2002	Sunday	Muharram 30, 1423

WASHINGTON, April 13: The World Trade Organization pushed back a ruling on the amount of sanctions the European Union can impose on the United States in a trade spat over US corporate tax policy, the US Trade Representative’s office said on Friday.

The ruling on a request by the EU for leave to impose sanctions on up to $4.04 billion worth of goods in the dispute is now expected by June 17 instead of April 29.

The earlier date would have been just days before President George W. Bush was to meet in Washington with European Commission President Romano Prodi and other EU leaders — and could have added tension to a gathering likely to be fraught with stress amid a dispute over steel tariffs.

This is the second time the WTO panel has delayed the ruling, a step that a source close to the process said likely reflected the complexity of the case.

The dispute centers on US tax breaks for exporters, something the WTO has ruled four times since 1997 are an illegal export subsidy. The United States has exhausted its appeals in the case.

The Bush administration disagrees with Brussels’ estimate of the amount of trade EU firms have lost because of the tax breaks and has asked a WTO arbitration panel to limit sanctions to roughly $1 billion. But even that would be the highest level of sanctions ever approved by the WTO.

The original ruling was due on March 29.

With the US tax filing deadline less than 72 hours away, President George W. Bush reassured Americans on Saturday that lower rates and more relief were on the way over the next decade.

In his weekly radio address, Bush said the initial effects of the 10-year, $1.3 trillion tax cut — the cornerstone of his presidential campaign — that he signed into law last summer would be felt when Americans filed their returns by midnight on Monday.

This year, tax day will be different, he said. This year, your tax rates are lower and you will keep more of your hard-earned money to spend or save, as you see fit.

Calling tax relief “a critical part” of his administration’s agenda, the Republican president called on Congress to make it permanent when the House of Representatives takes up the issue next week.

After the United States slid into recession in March last year, some Democrats in Congress began to talk about rolling back the tax cuts, to which Bush responded, Over my dead body. Most economists believe the downturn ended early this year.

Saying the best news on taxes was yet to come, Bush touted some of the new law’s provisions that will take effect by 2010, including a $1,000 increase in the child credit, a reduction in the marriage tax and the abolition of estate taxes.

He said that when the tax cut was fully phased in, 43 million married couples would see their payments reduced on average by more than $1,700 a year, and 38 million families with children would receive an annual tax cut of almost $1,500 to pay for education, child care or other expenses.

Eleven million single mothers