Posted on 12/20/2007 3:58:06 PM PST by george76
More than 20 million families will be spared an extra $2,000 tax hit on average after Congress excluded them from a higher alternative tax originally aimed at untaxed multimillionaires.
An eleventh-hour 352-64 vote on Wednesday to put a one-year freeze on growth of the alternative minimum tax shields many middle- and upper-middle- income taxpayers from first exposure to the tax. In 2006, it affected 4 million.
President Bush plans to sign the bill into law.
Republicans, backed by a presidential veto threat against any tax increase, insisted that the AMT was never meant to affect millions of people and thus shouldn't be fixed with increased taxes.
White House press secretary Dana Perino welcomed passage of a bill without a tax hike.
The Republicans prevailed.
On Tuesday night the Senate for a second time rejected the House-backed approach of a paid-for AMT bill. With that vote, the House reluctantly took up the Senate bill ...
(Excerpt) Read more at billingsgazette.net ...
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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said, “We are forced to recognize today that we don’t have the votes to pursue the pay-as-you-go principle.”
Thank a Republican.
Those 20 million wouldn’t have had to worry about a tax hike if congress would see their way to deporting 30 million illegals.
Don’t worry folks. This is only good for a year, which will give congress plenty of time to find new ways to tax you to death. And then in a year, when this issue comes up again, they’ll screw it up.
Congress is populated almost entirely of worthless imbeciles.
Just eliminate the AMT entirely already.
Better yet, eliminate all the deductions and exemptions and tax all income at 5% for the General Fund. That will bring in $700B — enough to pay for Defense, Judiciary, and everything else that is Constitutional.
Let the liberals who believe in all the Welfare programs pay for those by donation !
“Those 20 million wouldn’t have had to worry about a tax hike if congress would see their way to deporting 30 million illegals.”
Only four posts to the attempted thread hijack. Is this a habit, or a one-time slip?
So a "rich" couple making a mere $67k combined could still get smacked. How utterly generous of the government.
The AMT sucks. Being self employed, it really kills me. Imagine filling out your Turbo Tax thinking everything is going rather smooth, them bam. It hit me for about $9k last year. That’s a painful check to write, especially when the scum in DC are wasting billions in 10,000 earmarks on my back. I’m seriously considering taking my business off the grid. If they are going to continue to piss my money away, they’re just not going to get it.
I’d like to make it a habit. How many posts would that need?
Wish someone had the guts and the morals to ask the political candidates to assign what they thought was the amount of annual income that made a person rich, a couple rich and a family of four rich. It would be fun to watch if they were made to give a straight answer.
Notice how the joint filers aka, married,exemption is not double that of single filers? This is so democrats can punish married couples again, being that the marriage penalty was removed in the standard deductions. Married jointly should have an $84,500 deduction but don’t.
Bush tax cut for wealthy, bad.
Dem tax cut for the wealthy, good.
What took so long to get this done?
The Democrats were fighting to offset the 'cost' of not extending the AMT to lower income taxpayers by increasing taxes on higher income taxpayers.
The Republicans were fighting for a no-strings adjustment of the AMT.
The Republicans won but the American taxpayer continues to lose as the AMT is an extrememly regressive tax.
“So a “rich” couple making a mere $67k combined could still get smacked. How utterly generous of the government.
Only if their regularly calculated tax is less than 24% of $450, or $108. Instead of paying the lesser amount, they would pay $108.
They’d need about $65,000 in itemized deductions for that.
How about ending the savings tax? Inflation is a tax on savings.
Just imagine liberals repeating this in a crappy economy. (Yeah right..) The only good news is when this isn’t repealed many illegals will go home? Might as well try to look at the bright side because its coming? Maybe they will stay and teach us how to live in third world nation? Throw me a bone.
That wouldn’t be hard for a family of 6.
Amen. It’s not all that’s needed but it’s a heckofalot better than what the Demonrats wanted to shove down our throats.
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