Should we do anything about Alternative Minimum Tax?

[TheFarseer]

Upper Middle class people are bitching up a storm about this. As much as I want to dismiss it as doctors bitching that they can only get the 24 foot yacht, they are saying it’s getting people making $50,000 or less now. Besides it seems stupid to have all this going on when you could just have higher brackets and phase out deductions for higher incomes or whatever the problem is. The president’s advisory panel advised to dump AMT, lower all brackets and make up the difference by eliminating tax breaks like mortgage interest. To which I say :wtf: I have no idea how we are going to do that without running deficits in the trillions! I’m pretty involved with the tax code, but I don’t run into this ever, and besides our software figures it so I don’t really understand AMT. Anyone care to weigh in on this?

[liberal N proud]

1. But by bu$h's words - tax cuts will create jobs

I don't know how but the moron in chief honestly thinks this will work, or at least that is what he is telling his sheep to get them to buy the plan.

[kcass1954]

4. Only if we give them to corporations and rich people.

:sarcasm:

[liberal N proud]

8. I forgot that little fact!

Sorry

Make the rich - richer and the poor poorer - the bu$h regime theme

[RobertSeattle]

2. Not indexing ATM to inflation was one of the dumbest things dever done

by congress.

[Warren Stupidity]

3. The AMT ought to be inflation indexed.

I also have never slammed into the AMT, so I remain curious about these $50K folks who do. What I read is that due to inflation it does hit middle class incomes when it was intended to only affect the wealthy.

The cost of adjusting and then indexing the AMT ought to be funded by rolling back the obscene tax cuts handed out to the very wealthy, not by socking it to the middle class by eliminating the mortgage subsidy. On the other hand if the republican congress were stupid enough to eliminate the mortgage subsidy I would welcome the political fallout. It ain't going to happen.

[TheFarseer]

6. indexing to inflation makes sense

by that, do you mean raising the threshold, something like what we do with standard deductions and exemptions each year?

I want to say the $50,000 people who run into AMT have all or mostly investment income, but like I said, I couldn't say for sure.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Yes exactly.

All I know is that I make way more than 50K and I've never hit the AMT. But it certainly should have been indexed right from the start. That and the minimum wage all should be cola adjusted right along with SS benefits and the FICA tax.

[zbdent]

5. Raise the minimum, and have it adjust for inflation.

You know, like the congress's salaries . . . unlike the minimum wage.

[Warpy]

9. It's just not people making over $50K

I got hit by that sucker a few years ago when I was making considerably less than $50K, but had high deductions that year for out of pocket medical expenses. It has NO FLOOR and will kick in whenever some bloodless bureaucrat has determined your deductions are "too high," no matter what disaster those deductions are coming from.

That sonofabitch will hit everybody, eventually, but it wlll hit people taking those modest tax cuts for child care, education, and other crumbs offered to working stiffs first.