It is nothing short of astounding that anyone can seriously suggest a tax cut these days - given the recent round of massive tax cuts and the federal fiscal situation - and not get laughed out of town. Only in America.

Now if someone wants to talk about fixing the AMT "mistake" after repealing all those bank-breaking fat-cat tax breaks (estate tax semi-repeal, capital gains tax cut, dividend tax cut, decrease in the top marginal rate) - that someone might be on to something.

Hmmm, spoken like a true underpaid journalist, begging to take a shot at "the man".

Thanks to the AMT, my wife and I, both in our mid 40's, who file married, and work our butts off to earn about $55-$60k each, can't reap the benefits of the interest deductions on our one, single primary home, let alone child care credits or anything else beyond the price of raising our three kids. If you think we're rich, you need to expand your horizon's dude. But the AMT affects us squarely for two or three grand a year.

I figured out the other day, that our actual spendable income in 2005, when we grossed about 110k, just taking off taxes (fed and state income including AMT, property, sales) and healthcare costs for the family (premiums and deductibles/copays) boiled down to actually living off of like 40% of that gross. And that's not enough of you to take from me? You think the AMT is fair and needs to hang around?

Get a life. Job. Family, or something else to expand your horizons....mrb

Mike,

Don't weep for me... I'm not all that underpaid. And with the high state taxes I pay, I'm not terribly far from paying the AMT as it is, and will certainly get there soon; I'd almost certainly be there now if I wasn't renting. This not an abstract issue for me.

I don't like the AMT. It means we essentially have two tax codes, which violates two basic principles of good tax policy: transparency and simplicity.

What I object to is the idea that it is somehow inherently unfair to raise taxes anywhere else in order to simplify the tax code. It just doesn't follow.

A constructive conversation about taxes would address two questions:
1.) How much money does the government need to collect to live up to its commitments?
2.) How should that burden be distributed?

Grassley's agonizing over "unintended consequences" just clouds the issue.

What's really scary about the AMT is that to fix it you would have to take away the mortgage interest deduction completely. And this is what some in the government have already been hinting at. This is a time bomb folks. Our deficit is wider than anyone can imagine because we are counting a tax that we know we will never fully implement. We just keep doing stop gap measures each year to put off the pain.

What do we think of the AMT here?

just another program that was created with good intentions but somehow the Ivy leaguers forgot to consider a few things like inflation and or a gradual indexing.

(Look at my other favorite example of government programs boondoggled, the (8A) program, it seems like half these goofballs in this area that are in the SBA (8A) program were never or are now for that matter disadvantaged!) They put (8A) on their business cards like its something to be proud of!

AMT in general is a worthy cause when consider when it was created.

It could still be a worthy cause now if it was indexed with inflation.

But let reality sink in year after when more and more working middle class get slammed with it.

Bottom line in America there are two classes of taxpayers.
Ones that pay their fair share and the ones that don't!

The refrain "that tax cuts now seem hard to afford" is the real issue.

To the government bureaucrats, and their supporters, there is never a "right time" to cut taxes. The result is a blanket excuse to not reform any part of the tax code.

The ridiculousness of the suggestion that the Federal government, with over a trillion dollar budget, cannot reduce it's spending, is manifested in Social Security. The "retirement age" for this system has barely budged, when the average lifespan has almost doubled since the systems inception.

What's needed is the recognition that when the biggest specialist interest in Washington, DC-the bureaucrats, are allowed to decide spending priorities, the priority will always be themselves and not the taxpayer.

OK - so what you are saying is that a misguided tax rule that was originally designed to tax literally a handful of taxpayers that now impacts millions of taxpayer should stay in place because we can't afford another tax cut? Nuts to that! If you haven't been reading the news lately, the current tax cuts have resulted in record tax revenues being received by the US Treasury. Keeping a wrong in place for the wrong reason doesn't make it right. I am willing to bet the eliminating the AMT wil result in additional tax revenues. I have also read where the government - through lax enforcemment of current tax laws - lets corporations get away with billions in uncollected or reduced taxes. Start there with more enforcement before you support the AMT. Keeping the AMT is an easy out to cover what hasn't been and should have been collected. The AMT is tax law gone amock - ill conceived and ill designed (not indexed to inflation therby entrapping an ever growing base of taxpayers)and losing it is the right thing to do.

I agree: it's not a thoughtless boo-boo. It's a sneaky way of getting people to think there has been a tax cut. Many of us us were OK and not paying AMT until the Bush tax cuts came along. Now We get less money withheld from our salaries and then have to have additional taxes taken out ourselves or pay estimated taxes. Otherwise pay penalties because of all the AMT we owe when we file in Aoril. Capital gains are not 15% when you are paying AMT and losing your AMT exemption, they are more like 22%. As more people are snagged by this, maybe we can rescind the Bush tax "cuts" and go back to a fairer method of paying taxes.

Frankly, it's pretty clear what's up here, and it bears little resemblance to what you describe. Congress has been consistently 'temporarily' raising the exemptions each year. Which makes it pretty clear that they *intend* for those exemptions to rise. So why don't they do it permanently as you suggest? Simple - because then they'd have to admit how much it really costs. It's a pure accounting maneuver - but make no mistake, Congress does NOT intend for it to keep catching middle-income families. If they did, they wouldn't keep coming up with 'temporary' fixes.

The AMT is an abomination resulting from gutless politicians wanting to raise taxes while at the same time conning as many U.S. citizens as possible into thinking such obscure tax-raising would not affect them. The alternative way of raising taxes, with an easy-to-understand general rate increase, is not something the politicians wish to defend on the merits. The "unintended consequences" occurs when enough Americans figure out what our "representatives" have done. And the result is a massively complicated tax system requiring American citizens to waste enormous time in calculating their tax obligations.

Keep this article and study it in 30 years. At that time, perhaps you will have the wisdom to understand why low taxes and limited government result in a growing standard of living, while nations that try to institute policies to equalize incomes become the basket cases of the world. Poor people don't create many jobs. People who make the most money are the ones who give to the most people the things they want.
The rich do not sit on their assets. They invest in their own businesses or invest in other businesses that offer the promise to aid the public. There are exceptions. Those people in Hollywood who do not earn their money, but get it because of their voice or their looks, have a distorted view of wealth. Unfortunately, it is their views that are heard, because the Bill Gates and the Warren Buffets of the world are working instead of expounding their views.

Do you really think its fair to call people earning more than 100000 middle class? The AMT repeal is just another tax cut for the rich and influential class. If the proponents of AMT repeal think 200000 combined family income is middle class would they be open to removing the social security cap of 95000? Most common Americans would be outraged to learn that if you earn more than 95000 you dont pay social security but if you are a minimum wage worker you pay the full 15% (even if 7.5% is paid directly by your employer)

Doesn't the AMT phase out after a certain income level? If this is true, it would seem that Bush and his buddies (even his old foe John Kerry) would be getting the benfit of tax breaks -like child exemptions and state income tax deductions, etc.-due to their high incomes that I currently do not get. Financially, it would have been better if I hadn't gotten married because my spouse makes more than I do. Instead of one person getting hit, we are both hit by the AMT. I would even get a deduction for my kid. I've heard of the "medicare divorce," soon we could have the AMT divorce for couples that have disparate incomes. For this reason alone, you'd think that the current administration would want to repeal the tax. We could call it the "defense of marriage" AMT repeal.

Um, Prabudda, yes it is fair to call people earning more than $100000 middle class. I don't know a thing about the cost of living in Austin Texas, but I can tell you from experience that it costs a mint to live / raise a family in the NY Metro area. Heck, I'm moving the family to an area that will give me almost a 2 hour one way door-to-door commute so I can live in a more 'affordable' community with good schools, but it will still cost me almost $500 month to park at the train station, take the commuter train to the city and then transfer to the subway. Then I get to pay income taxes to two states as well. After paying the mortgage / real estate taxes etc on my 'mansion,' buying diapers at Costco, and stashing a few bucks in college and retirement funds (no pensions for us!), that will probably leave me with enough cash on a monthly basis to get the oil changed in my luxurious 9 year old Honda. Yeah, it has leather seats--you want to tax me on that too? As for your comment about us rich folks not paying social security tax on income above $95000, my response to you is that most people in my generation don't expect to see a dime in social security benefits, so as far as I'm concerned it's a lousy investment. Geez, it's great to be rich!

There's an easy way to repeal the AMT and keep all those frugal "pay as you go" types happy -- just tax the 25 to 50 million illegals now living and working in this country. Or are they too important a voting block for some members of Congress?

This is the biggest tax windfall ever if left unchanged. The american public must demand either rewriting the code to index the AMT or repeal it all together.

OK, so the government is broke. Who out there thinks the economy is well and growing. We are broke folks. Foreign governments are keeping us afloat. They have to or lose their investments. Stop all income taxes, go with a consumption tax, flat rate. Shared between state and Feds. If you consume it you pay for it. If you do not...Also Stop using you homes as a cash cow, get back to using cash.

The real problem with the AMT is that it imposes the tax burden disproportionately upon high cost-of-living states, primarily on the costs. The Constitution forbade such a direct tax, but under Woodrow Wilson, it was amended.

I am not clear on what the point was of your comment about Montclair, NJ and Newton, MA? Are you impying that the AMT doesn't really impact the "true" middle class, only the upper part of it? In any case, it is a hidden tax that nobody in government seriously wants to eliminate. I am all for abolishing AMT and fixing the tax code in general. It is time for a flat tax across the board. Keep the mortgage and charitable deductions and eliminate all others under a flat tax plan.

well they could always repeal the AMT and bring in a flat rate income tax.

oh, hang on minute......

cont.

Like Willie Sutton, the federal government will go where the money is: the middle class. Taxing the poor doesn't produce revenue, and the poor don't pay income tax, only social security.
Taxing the rich is a feel-good non-solution. It prodiuces votes not revenue. The politics of envy as perfected by Mario Cuomo and other spielmeisters of the supposed left is good politics but bad government.
As a New York resident, I am hurt by the AMT. I think the Republicans were happy not to do nything about it because it fell largely on blue states.

AMT is simply preparing us for a flat tax.

Think about it: as more of us fall into the AMT and our deductions are phased out, we start paying a flat tax. Once we get used to not having deductions, we learn how to live easily with a flat tax.

Hopefully, the tax rate will then drop a bit to make us feel better. And I agree with another commenter: poor people don't grow an economy. Give us more of our money and we spend it to grow the economy.

The fact that the AMT has not been eliminated heretofore has nothing to do with the fact that it is still bad legislation today and should be repealed.

Government at every level spends every dollar it can confiscate from the public and then some. It's time to stop giving them our hard earned money to squander.

Just because Washington has looked the other way for years while it collected (and spent) a fortune from this errant tax legislation, does not mean that we need to allow Congress to continue to sap this windfall gain from the American taxpayer.

The AMT should be repealed and nothing should be done to replace the ill gotten gains it produced.

When is enough enough when it comes to soaking the taxpayer and sapping incentive for productivity? We need to spend less time on the revenue side of the equation and force Congress to address spending instead. Then we wouldn't need an AMT.

In an age where republicans have only focused on enriching the already booming boomers into the stratosphere of comfortable society,... selfishly motivated elder lawmakers enacting breaks on income and estate taxes as wealth is handed over in buckets, all the while taxing every successive generation more and more to shoulder their burden... the AMT needs a correction to affix more of the goverment-cost burden to the wealthy who can easily afford it after years of windfalls. Will this country ever get out from under the "ME" generation?... what about US?

I see it this way. Currently, a single taxpayer earning $50,000 , without itenizing will owe about $6,000 in federal taxes. A family of 4 making the same $50,000 will owe about $1,300. I got these from a business magazine statistic. If the AMT makes that family pay a couple of thousand more, then they will still be paying far less than the single person earning the same amount.
Now, some economists are suggesting getting rid of the AMT and raising tax rates on everyone to offset the future tax revenue loss. This means that I, as a single person, will have to pay more to subsidize the generous tax cuts for families in 2001 and 2003. The federal government needs to stop social engineering with the tax code. On my $51,000 I earned last year, the total effects of the Bush tax cuts amounted to about $350. I fear that if the rates are raised to dispose of the AMT, then it will wash out all of my tax cut.

What I object to is the idea that it is somehow inherently unfair to raise taxes anywhere else in order to simplify the tax code. It just doesn't follow.

A constructive conversation about taxes would address two questions:
1.) How much money does the government need to collect to live up to its commitments?
2.) How should that burden be distributed?


How much money does the government need ? Our government 'needs' an infinite amount of money. That's the problem. Our government doesn't spend money based on need, it spends money based on want. And an awfull lot of it is in black budgets that are not public. I don't think there is any way to ever get our government to spend based on need. Whenever someone brings it up the response is that of an addict or a small child. "I NEED IT ! DON'T TAKE IT AWAY ! "

The truth is taxes DO need to be lowered NOT raised. Except on the rich. And even then it should be reasonable. Lowering taxes will give everyone more money to spend which will make the economy grow which will create more jobs which will produce more tax revenue. That is the proper way to tax a society. The people of a country should not exist to produce money for it's government like in this country. The govenment should exist to provide for the people. In fact has anyone even remembered that over taxation was the reason this country was founded in the first place ? It seems to me that we are coming due for a new revolution.

Is anything being done? is there a petition or something that people can sign, aside from contacting their senators or congresspeople on an individual basis? This hits the middle class, the largest segment of the US population, yet nothing is done to fix this.

Rock on Dave. While we in Philly don't have the cost of living you suffer with in NY, we share many of the same issues. If our social security benefits are going to be capped at a few grand a month (if we see any at all), it seems more than fair to cap the premiums we pay.

Mike & Pat - I'm a little confused about your comments regarding mortgage interest. While I'm no expert on the tax code, it is my understanding that as unfair as the AMT is with regard to wiping out most deductions (local & prop taxes and misc deductions), mortage interest isn't one of them (provided your mortgage was used to buy or improve your home). Check out the instructions to Form 6251 at http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i6251.pdf.

Nonethelss, AMT is a bad tax with unintended consequences that our reps use to manipulate the system. So the real problem is, how do you repeal the AMT in a revenue neutral way? Good luck getting the government to spend less. So Ryan raises a pretty good point - how about doing away with some of the tax breaks for those that don't earn their income? Dividends, cap gains and the estate tax all come to mind. For anyone out there worried about the so-called "death tax", it won't effect you anyway unless you are expecting an inheritence of more than a mil when it comes back in 2011. Yes - I've heard the family business argument; but if someone was handing me a business worth a few mil, I wouldn't gripe too loudly about paying a little tax. Face it, the estate tax repeal was a give away to the truly wealthy.

Given the choice of maintaining AMT and continuing to sock those that work hard to earn a living, and taxing those that have done nothing to earn it, I'd go for eliminating the AMT.

The death tax only effects those people who have an inheritance just above the limit. The really rich people simply maintain there investments/money in foreign countries with no income or inheritance taxes. Go visit Grand Cayman or Switzerland. Really, you pay taxes on your money your entire life, when you die why should the government get an automatic 50%?

On the other side, it is clear that the AMT is not part of a transparent well designed tax system. If one were going to a priori design an optimized tax code, its highly doubtful that the AMT would be part of it. Look at what Estonia has done in moving from the Soviet system. Part of the problem in America today is that politicians never seek optimized solutions, but ways to reconcile campaign sound bites with the status quo.

There seems to be a thread running through a number of comments here that a major objective of the government is to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor and to move American society from "me" to us/collectivism that I find troubling. The tax on Americans living abroad is ironic coupled to the creaping socialism here for Americans who don't want to live in an "us-based" collectivist society- we still have to pay for it, even if we leave (with Sen. Grassley ironically as a major proponent of that taxation).

The AMT has only become a problem because of the tax cuts passed over the past 6 years. I'm impressed with the Republican leaders in Congress. For years they passed tax cuts taking into account the AMT's effect on those tax cuts, cuts that would not have passed without the AMT. Now that the tax cuts are passed, they want to cut taxes further by cutting the AMT. Politically brilliant, devastating to our national deficit.

No AMT has always been a problem. The Tax cuts may of helped to accelerate the problem but sooner or later it was going to catch up with the public. Ever heard of inflation? AMT has never been adjusted other then the fixes during the last several years. Also people must remember cost of living and salaries vary from state to state. To survive in DC, LA, NY we need higher incomes. Middle class in these areas is probably very rich in another. The taxes should be based more on locality.

What about all of the people and companies that benefit from government windfalls either directly or indirectly? I see this a big part of the issue. How many family or friends do "you" know that are somehow connected to government money?

Taxes are definitely too high, but I don't know many folks that are willing to give up the government "teet". One example of this were the military base closures in California. Many folks agreed in principle to the closures, but did not want "their" base closed.

Bottom line...is that most folks I've known are not going to readily give-up or sacrifice anything meaningful to their standard of living "for the greater good".

Prior to its amendment under Wilson in 1914, the Constitution prohibited any direct tax without apportionment among the states. The AMT is the ultimate perversion stemming from the tragedy of that amendment. It is a sectional tax that is paid disproportionately by high cost of living areas that need higher incomes for people to live there.
The AMT was signed into law by Nixon, but was a Johnson administration proposal intended to pay for VietNam and to deflect publicity about abusive tax shelters that allowed high income people to escape income tax. Those shelters were eliminated under Reagan.
In 1974, few anticipated the ruinous inflation of the 70's. You would have to triple the income numbers of that time to reach parity with today's debased dollar. If the AMT kicked in at $300,000, no one would object. Some number crunchers in the CBO or elsewhere no doubt foresaw that the unindexed AMT would work as a Trojan horse over time, but surely Nixon and the congressional leaders were not focused beyond the next election.
I take issue with the notion that congress had the opportunity many times to amend the AMT and did not, and thus they intend its effects. It is a question of whose constituency is hurt. When you have a tax that falls unequally, those who escape may shed crocodile tears, but will do all they can to maintain the status quo. The republicans were happy to see the blue states pay while they bemoaned the unfairness of it all. Flyover country where their base resides, suffered less.
As a New Yorker, my interest is not in a flat tax because I would lose my deductions. And of course the rate would sneak up every year so that you would end up at 30% without any deductions. I would prefer a national sales tax that exempts the basic necessities of life so that the poor would still not have to pay, unless they bought booze, butts or luxuries. This would catch all the off the books people and drug dealers.
The estate tax is pure social policy. It only generated 1% of federal revenues. I say leave it to the states. The families with huge wealth or the skill and foresight to manage moderate wealth can easily find ways to avoid the estate tax. It hs a trap for thew unwary. Clinto was willing to go along with a $5 million exemption. If indexed, that would be reasonable. $5 million is like $1 million in 1974 in purchasing power, maybe less. Divide up $5 million among 4 kids, two ex-wives, grandchildren and step-children and you are not talking dynastic wealth. If the govt takes an effective rate of 25% of that, it doesn't go very far.
This journo, like most of his ilk, is simply another apologist for targeted, abusive federal taxation.

middle class cost depends on where you live. 100k on the east or west coast isn't much compared to living in the midwest.
Taxes should be a flat rate, no exemptions. It can't be more fair than that. A national consumption tax would be a good idea as a replacement for income tax, pay as you go basically.

Thank you for pointing out what is really happening.

Congress's inaction on this issue could best be shown by analogizing to that scene in Austin Powers where the steam roller is coming at the guy at about 2 mph and he's screaming about getting ran over by it even though it's about 30 ft away. Actually, this can be compared to about anything with which Congress is involved.

You can thank TurboTax for much of the lack of outcry about the AMT, just like you can thank withholding for the general lack of outcry about tax rates.

What people don't see they don't squawk about.

I may not be a genius, but it doesn't really take a genius to figure out how to solve our tax problem. I propose this:
1. Remove the cap on Social Security tax. Period. Everyone should pay it. I will say the same thing when I'm 45 and even when I'm 65. Being 25 now, I don't expect to get one penny for it.
2. Stop allowing the government to get a salary increase of more than my own salary. They make plenty. Not even the President (not specifically Bush, just the job title altogether) gets increases like that. How many years did it take for the highest raking position in our government to get a raise of any amount? They should wait that long, too.
3. Regulate banks with a mighty sword. Suicidal loans should not be in existance if all the banks are going to use it without any reagrd of the public.

Seriously, how can we the most powerful country in the world if we can't enough manage our own finances??