Cut in AMT Unlikely This Year
“Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said Tuesday that Congress was not likely to act this year to shield millions of middle- and upper-income taxpayers from a larger income tax bite as lawmakers moved into the final days of the session with many major issues hanging in the balance,” The New York Times reports. “In laying out what he hoped to accomplish before adjourning for the year, Mr. Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said that ‘in all likelihood’ the Senate would not try to reach agreement with the House on competing $30 billion plans to reduce the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The tax, originally created to prevent the rich from escaping tax liability, is expected to reach another 15 million Americans next year because of inflation.”
In “Maximizing the Minimum Tax,” Cato senior fellow Alan Reynolds, writes: “A New York Times editorial, ‘Mr. Bush's stealthy tax increase,’ claimed, ‘President Bush is presiding over a big middle-class tax hike.’ That is because rising nominal incomes will push more and more taxpayers into the ‘alternative minimum tax’ (AMT). Such partisan complaints are ironic because the AMT was invented by Democrats to squeeze more taxes from the rich. It does so by denying those with higher incomes deductions and personal exemptions available to other taxpayers -- that is, by denying equal treatment under the law.”
Posters comment/question
Problem with ths Alternative Minimum Tax appears to be a the lack of indexing, which would allow for inflation. This particular problem is nothing new. Possibly this is not one of my brighter days, but I do wonder as to how come our elected things have never fixed the problem. They are certainly aware of it.
“Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said Tuesday that Congress was not likely to act this year to shield millions of middle- and upper-income taxpayers from a larger income tax bite as lawmakers moved into the final days of the session with many major issues hanging in the balance,” The New York Times reports. “In laying out what he hoped to accomplish before adjourning for the year, Mr. Frist, Republican of Tennessee, said that ‘in all likelihood’ the Senate would not try to reach agreement with the House on competing $30 billion plans to reduce the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The tax, originally created to prevent the rich from escaping tax liability, is expected to reach another 15 million Americans next year because of inflation.”
In “Maximizing the Minimum Tax,” Cato senior fellow Alan Reynolds, writes: “A New York Times editorial, ‘Mr. Bush's stealthy tax increase,’ claimed, ‘President Bush is presiding over a big middle-class tax hike.’ That is because rising nominal incomes will push more and more taxpayers into the ‘alternative minimum tax’ (AMT). Such partisan complaints are ironic because the AMT was invented by Democrats to squeeze more taxes from the rich. It does so by denying those with higher incomes deductions and personal exemptions available to other taxpayers -- that is, by denying equal treatment under the law.”
Posters comment/question
Problem with ths Alternative Minimum Tax appears to be a the lack of indexing, which would allow for inflation. This particular problem is nothing new. Possibly this is not one of my brighter days, but I do wonder as to how come our elected things have never fixed the problem. They are certainly aware of it.
