Posted on 07/20/2005 12:51:23 PM PDT by Your Nightmare
Members of President Bush's advisory panel on tax reform largely agree that the individual alternative minimum tax, or AMT, should be fully repealed the committee's chairman said Wednesday.
"I think the obvious consensus was on the AMT on the individual side. We didn't end up with a consensus on the corporate side, even though I think it's fair to say that I think all panel members felt the corporate AMT was really not an effective way to tax," Chairman Connie Mack, a former Republican senator from Florida, told reporters after a public meeting of the committee.
The AMT is a parallel tax system created in 1969; it was enacted after it was revealed that a handful of extremely wealthy Americans paid no income tax. But thresholds for the AMT were never indexed for inflation. As a result, it has encompassed or threatened a growing number of middle-income taxpayers over the years. Lawmakers and administrations have responded by temporarily pushing up the threshold, but have yet to come up with a complete fix.
It's also become a substantial revenue source. Full repeal would reduce revenues by more than a trillion dollars over 10 years.
During the panel discussion, committee member Bill Frenzel said he agreed that it was time to "bite the bullet" and press for full repeal, but warned that doing so will put a "huge burden" on the panel to find a way to make up the lost revenues.
The panel's vice chairman, former Democratic Sen. John Breaux, said that while he's not a fan of the AMT, the panel must examine whether the full repeal of the system would allow some of the nation's highest earners to get away with paying no tax at all.
Mack replied that if that were the case, the committee would have to make adjustments in order to maintain roughly the same tax burden on the upper quintile of earners that is now in place.
The panel members agreed that changes to the corporate AMT would best be tackled as part of a broad corporate tax reform, Mack noted.
The committee, formally known as the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, must present the Treasury Department with a set of tax-reform proposals in September.
Bush has set a number of ground rules for the panel, however. The proposals must be revenue-neutral. Also, future tax measures can't touch the code's most sacred cows -- mortgage interest deduction and charitable giving.
That's really a dumb statement. Any of the internet based dictionaries has it.
That there are multiple references for a definition of "fair" doesn't mean I think taxes are fair.
Who is eliminating taxpayers?The fairtax
You invented that.I invented the idea that the fairtax eliminates taxes on SOME business and SOME corporations? thereby eliminating SOME taxpayers
I said MORE taxpayers.SO...
Business and corportations don't pay taxesThey don't? Why do they file?
Oh, and it's not mathematics ... it's arithmetic.Oh and that's imbecilic...not idiocy Lapdog
They don't? Why do they file?
There is no reason for it. It hides taxes paid by individuals and it adds to the overall expenses of business unecessarily.
Business taxes should indeed be eliminated.
Business taxes should indeed be eliminated.I thought you said they don't pay taxes....
This way, the feds can raise taxes on all of us by making business collect it from us. THe unbridled stupidity of those who do not recognize this squares directly with the number of liberal democrats.
They don't - they collect them in the form of higher prices, lower wages, or reduced ROI.To what part of business does that NOT apply?..
Doesn't business tax paid by individuals fall right into your own definition of a larger tax base?...Meaning more taxpayers makes a lower tax rate for you.
This way, the feds can raise taxes on all of us by making business collect it from usThat sounds like a national sales tax to me.
Read slower. This is only part of it. Look back a few posts - the existing taxes collected by business are invisible to the individual consumer. That is one of the reasons business taxes are nothing more than hidden taxes on the individual.
My God you are dense.
"Your entire premise of tax utopia is based on the false presumption that if a tax reform bill is argued in congress and the central issue is whether or not to have a sales tax, that congress will see fit to eliminate the income tax first before imposing a sales tax. I think you really need to see a doctor to treat your delusional thoughts."
It is not a delusion nor a presumption - IT IS WRITTEN IN THE BILL. The income tax is not eliminated BEFORE the sales tax is implemented; they both happen concurrently. The bill is revenue neutral; leaving the income tax in place while adding the sales tax would result in a TAX INCREASE. Revenue neutrality is a requirement by President Bush and the FairTax has been revenue neutral since inception.
Another that subscribes to Looey-rithmetic is heard from ...
... and doesn't know the difference between the two!!
LOL! Ignorant Nightie Line of the DAY!!!
Now carry on.
Wrong (again) Finial. The elimination of the income tax with the passage of the FairTax is not an assumption - it's an integral part of the bill. Just like the destruction of income tax records and defunding the IRS.
It is YOU making the unwarranted assumption.
There will be no Congressional support for including the income tax as part of the FairTax bill. That would require a complete rewriting of the bill ,,, and that ain't gonna happen.
Suggest you read the bill since you have never done so. Congress has no need to eliminate the IT first, that is done by passage of the FairTax bill in present form. But I thought you knew that since you claim to have read it years ago ... must have slipped you mind, eh?
It's amazing how you SQL guys fight to retain our present wonderful system that penalizes not only individual taxpayers but exporting business as well. Of course, none of you care about that, do you??? Or America either I would guess judging from the inane comments.
Another that subscribes to Looey-rithmetic is heard from ... ... and doesn't know the difference between the two!!Knucklehead, arithmetic is mathematics.
No reason to since life is not lived within the covers of a legal dictionary. I told you that "Fair" was defined by the FairTax bill itself (hint - that's why it's called the FairTax bill).
If you think the present system is "fair", be my guest (since you certainly have many other misplaced beliefs) ... there are a great number who disagree with you including many economists:
http://www.fairtax.org/pdfs/Open_Letter_President.pdf
Sorry, I didn't see your post. I'll play nice. :-)
You are certainly qualified to know both of those "i" things, Looey!!! You clearly lead in both categories.
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