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April's Fools: One Born Every Minute April 02, 2007 By Herman Cain An old and popular English proverb cautions us that a fool and his money are soon parted. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) is taking us all for fools with some of his recent statements and votes. On January 4, 2007, Senator Baucus spoke on the Senate floor about the imperative need to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). The AMT was enacted in 1969 to make sure that a handful of millionaires could not take advantage of completely legal tax deductions and shelters. Because Congress did...

AMT? Yes, it’s the alternative minimum tax, a poorly conceived, passive menace brought to you by inflation. The AMT—a parallel system with separate rates and fewer deductions—was written and passed to prevent the super rich from using deductions, credits and other shelters to avoid paying taxes. But because of rising incomes, this year the AMT is expected to ensnare 3.8 million taxpayers. Next year, the AMT exemption is scheduled to drop significantly, trapping another 20 million households, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. The quickest way to determine whether you’ll be swept up is to use the IRS’...

Is the AMT really the realization of the Flat Tax? Is it therefore actually more fair and democratic than the regular tax code? I wonder where my fellow Freepers stand on the issue of repealing, fixing or leaving in place, the AMT, which increasingly is going to become the main tax system in the country for people who actually pay taxes. On the one hand, it results in a higher amount of taxes paid, on the other hand, it seems like a fair, flat tax that a few years ago some conservatives claimed to like. I have my opinion, but...

<p>WASHINGTON - A tax law meant to crack down on wealthy tax dodgers has instead become the most serious problem facing millions of other taxpayers.</p> <p>For the government, the biggest problem is billions of dollars in unpaid taxes, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson said Tuesday in a report to Congress on the hurdles Americans face in meeting their tax obligations.</p>

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The Senate's top tax writers kicked off the new Congress Thursday with a renewed call to repeal the alternative minimum tax. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the tax panel's senior Republican, introduced legislation that would eliminate the alternative levy, which initially, in 1969, targeted a handful of wealthy Americans who had paid no income tax. Because the AMT wasn't indexed to inflation, it has grown to threaten millions of middle-class taxpayers. 'The new Congress intends to provide tax relief to middle-income Americans in a fiscally responsible way, and the...

Washington -- After six years of railing against Republican tax cuts for the rich and fiscal irresponsibility, Democrats will find themselves come January under enormous pressure to pass a hugely expensive tax cut -- without any way to make up the revenue. The alternative minimum tax, which slaps an extra income tax on many higher-income people, has become a political monster for Democrats, threatening to clobber prosperous professionals in such Democratic strongholds as California and New York. The tax was installed by Democrats in 1969 to make people with high incomes pay their fare share. However, because the rate was...

RANGEL: Not repealing. You are talking about after 2010? CAVUTO: Right. RANGEL: I don't think we will be speculating as to what's going to happen after 2010. I said it, that's my story and I'm sticking with it...RANGEL:... to see how these people can take care of their own problem; we have got to pull our troops out of harm's way, I would say, hey, that's what we are talking about. You really didn't have to change Rumsfeld, if he was to say those things. .RANGEL: ... You know, I get the impression that, if there are people that believe...

REMEMBER BACK when you were young and poor and nothing made you madder than tales of rich people who paid nothing in income taxes? Well, you weren't alone, and that anger led to the creation of something called the alternative minimum tax, which was designed to keep the rich from living tax-free. Fast-forward a few years. You're a bit older, somewhat better off and paying far more in taxes than you ever thought possible. So what's the last thing you expect to see when you fill out your tax return? That you owe the alternative minimum tax. You can take...

On Friday, Sept. 8, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) will host a dinner for former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami at the Marriott Crystal Gateway in Arlington, Va. The theme of his address at the CAIR dinner will be "The Dialogue of Civilizations: Five Years After 9/11." Khatami will be in Washington, D.C., to take part in an event at the National Cathedral. WHAT: CAIR Hosts Dinner for Former President of Iran WHEN: Friday, Sept. 8 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. (A private reception with President Khatami, including a photo opportunity, will precede the dinner at 6 p.m.) WHERE:...

ABC radio reported that Congressional Republicans have agreed to an extension of G.W.'s tax cut proposal. 15 million taxpayers would have been a victim of the alternative minimum tax. The agreement also extends exiting low rate for capitol investment.

In the spring, the political class tends to get exercised about the AMT. Last year, when about 3 million people paid the tax, there was a flurry of activity. The Senate finance committee held a hearing that promised to blow the lid off the stealth tax. Generally, Congress has kept the AMT under control by enacting so-called patches—temporary increases in the amount of earnings exempt from the AMT. At the hearing last spring, Robert Carroll, deputy assistant secretary at Treasury, testified that the AMT was set to spread rapidly. It is designed to ensnare the prosperous middle—people whose income places...

This tax season is shaping up as a banner one for the federal government. The strong stock markets have produced a gusher of capital gains taxes. Corporations are continuing to reap massive profits, and so they're paying more in corporate income taxes. Lehman Brothers economist Drew Matus told Barron's that he expects "a 17 percent jump in tax receipts this season (not including regular withholding), and just a 5 percent increase in refunds." The upshot: Tax-season payments could be $59 billion higher than last year. Should these projections materialize, Republicans will trumpet them as a validation of the supply-side tax-cutting...

The first data to document the effect of President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000. Skip to next paragraph Multimedia Interactive Graphic: Dividends in Your County Related A Terrain That Peaks at $33,392 and Bottoms at $21 (April 5, 2006) An analysis of Internal Revenue Service data by The New York Times found that the benefit of the lower taxes on investments was far more concentrated on the very wealthiest Americans than...

The upshot is that the AMT may spur a broad tax reform; it may lay the groundwork for a broad reform; or it may simply turn out to be a politically tolerable tax increase at a time when the country needs all the fiscal help it can get. In a first-choice world, the AMT is a horror. But in Tax Land, which is a third-choice world at best, the AMT looks heaven-sent.

WASHINGTON - Vietnam didn't spark the most constituent anger toward Congress in 1969. What riled people back then was the fact that 155 of America's super-rich didn't pay a penny in income tax. The resulting tax revolt got Congress to pass the alternative minimum tax to make sure that even the upper crust pays at least a little to Uncle Sam. Tax revolt may be at hand again.

How Bush's Budget Affects Your Taxes President Calls for One-Year Measure To Protect Millions from AMT; Compromise on Estate Tax? By TOM HERMAN Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL February 7, 2006; Page D1 President Bush called for a one-year stopgap measure to protect millions of taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax this year. In his $2.77 trillion budget plan unveiled yesterday, the president made few new proposals that affect individual taxpayers and investors. He renewed his appeals to Congress to kill the estate tax and create new tax-favored savings vehicles to encourage people to increase their savings.

Would you be willing to give up all of your tax deductions -- state and local taxes, mortgage interest, church and charitable contributions, etc. -- in exchange for sharply lower tax rates? With the return of Congress, the debate is about to begin again. One major obstacle to tax reform is the confusion in the minds of most Americans (and many members of Congress) about average versus marginal tax rates. Your average tax rate is the percentage of your total income that you paid in taxes, and your marginal tax rate is the rate you paid on your last dollar...

For conservative lawmakers taking stock of the 2005 legislative year, two important lessons stand out. Whether they learn from them could determine the extent of their successes in 2006. Lesson No. 1: Some of the staunchest liberals in Congress appear desperate to secure either the outright repeal or a temporary mitigation of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Created in 1969, the AMT was designed to extract tax payments from a miniscule number of millionaires (then a mere 155) whose aggressive use of tax deductions and other legal techniques to shelter income erased their entire tax liability. Overwrought class warriors of...

Where you live can have a big impact on how much you pay in taxes each year. The spread, according to numbers crunched by the nonprofit Tax Foundation, might not be enough to make you pull up stakes and move to a new state, but it can give you a case of tax envy. The state and local burden ranges from 6.4% (Alaska) to 13% (Maine).

One of Congress' first orders of business this year ought to be an issue that was on last year's agenda and should have been addressed at that time. On second thought, it should have been addressed many years ago, as soon as politicians realized that it was a growing problem... The Alternative Minimum Tax, which could belt as many as 17 million additional taxpayers with sharply higher levies in 2006 - several thousand dollars each, in fact - if nothing is done to roll it back... This tax that was enacted decades ago to make sure extremely wealthy Americans paid...