Republicans want you to pay higher taxes!

Politics and religion
1

From http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&e=2&u=/ap/alternative_minimum_tax

“The House rejected, 228-197, a Democratic fix to the alternative minimum tax that would have exempted every individual earning $125,000 or less and every couple earning $250,000 or less. They argued their solution would not only prevent millions from paying the tax, but also simplify one of the most complicated parts of the tax code.”

So these filthy republicans put off a looming tax increase to disguise the fact that they’re against further tax cuts for the middle class and upper middle. Typical.

2

how wacky is our tax system, that people who obviously make tons of money can escape paying taxes on it, such that we have to create a whole seperate set of rules in order to get them to pay taxes.

3

What’s even better is that the kind of income streams used by rich people have deductions that remain exempt under AMT, so in this case, the democrats were truly lowering taxes on the professional class, without corresponding cuts to the wealthy, and the republicans simply couldn’t allow that.

4

any good online guides on how AMT works? i know the basics of it, but not much beyond that.

5

So these filthy republicans put off a looming tax increase to disguise the fact that they’re against further tax cuts for the middle class and upper middle. Typical.

Yes. The impending AMT crisis has been known since 1998 or so; it’s going to show up long before the Social Security “crisis,” but guess which one we hear about? The AMT is currently a silent tax on the upper middle class, and its making its way down; the average worker will be covered by it in just a few years. The super rich don’t pay it, of course.

Short form: once you hit a certain amount of income, they start disallowing itemized deductions and related things.

Long form:

http://www.smartmoney.com/tax/filing/index.cfm?story=amt
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=107843,00.html

6

I think I’d rather that they scrapped the regular tax code, with all its Byzantine rules, and imposed the AMT on everyone. It’s simpler, right?