Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- Bad news. You've spent days trudging through tax forms only to run into a kink that eliminates most of your tax benefits and sticks you with a much bigger bill. That kink is called the alternative minimum tax or AMT, and it's creeping up on a growing number of people with circumstances that trigger a trap once aimed solely at the richest tax dodgers. The system can strip taxpayers of benefits they would otherwise have gotten for children, out-of-pocket business expenses and state, local and property taxes. Could you be at risk? Those who fall "into this category,...

The valuable federal tax deductions that people receive for paying local and state taxes have quietly started to vanish for many households, raising the cost of living in places like New York, Massachusetts and California, already among the nation's most expensive. The culprit is a once-obscure federal tax provision known as the alternative minimum tax, which was created in 1969 to ensure that a relatively small number of wealthy people did not use loopholes to avoid paying taxes. But it is increasingly being applied to families with incomes of $75,000 to $250,000 a year who claim relatively high deductions -...

We've all heard about the Alternative Minimum Tax, or at least most of us will sooner or later. That convoluted scheme to ensure we can't use deductions to avoid paying our "fair" share is predicted to ensnare a record 12.3 million taxpayers next year, and between one-quarter and one-third of all filers by 2010. But the disclosure that Teresa Heinz Kerry paid a federal tax rate of only 12.4% on her income in 2003 has given us a different idea. How about a Kerry Maximum Tax? That is, no taxpayer should have to pay a larger share of his income...

The House considered a bill Wednesday designed to limit the reach of the alternative minimum tax (search), a provision in the tax code intended to trap affluent tax evaders but which some say now ensnares more and more middle income families. "AMT is supposed to check wealthy tax dodgers, not middle income families catching a break," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. The alternative minimum tax system imposed higher taxes and extraordinary complexities on 3 million taxpayers this year. The Tax Policy Center (search), which provides information on taxes, budgets and government policy, estimated that 8 million to 12...

<p>When people vote for candidates, they are not just voting for an individual; they are voting for a party. I don't just mean in terms of control of the White House or Congress, but in a philosophical sense. The two parties have very different philosophies on various issues and when one votes for a candidate of a particular party, one essentially votes for that philosophy, regardless of the views of the individual candidate. No matter what that candidate may say or believe personally, over time they eventually are forced to conform to their party's philosophy if elected.</p>

Most taxpayers should be worried when politicians claim that they only want to raise taxes on the so-called rich.   First, a question needs to be answered: Does it make economic sense to impose high taxes on high-income earners? After all, raising taxes on upper incomes effectively means raising taxes on economic success. Is that smart economics? In addition, upper income individuals are better able to make the investments that spur entrepreneurship and the economy forward. Hiking taxes on the “rich,” therefore, restrains business start-ups and expansions, job creation, and economic growth. Second, we’ve had some glaring examples over the...

<p>Oh, the disappointment. We mean John Kerry's economic policy proposals consisting of the same old stuff about soaking the rich while protecting the middle class. We know Mr. Kerry is unlikely to turn to us for advice, but were he to lower his senatorial gaze to what is happening on the ground, he would discover a really dandy tax issue. In fact, it's something that a big bunch of middle-income taxpayers are discovering for themselves this month -- the horror of the alternative minimum tax.</p>

By Allan Sloan NewsweekApril 12 issue - Tax time isn't fun, unless you're an accountant keeping a running tab of how much you're billing clients as April 15 nears. But this year tax season's even more distressing than usual. You've been looking forward to cashing in your share of the $3 trillion or so in tax cuts President George W. Bush has pushed through in the past few years, those "real and immediate benefits to middle-income Americans'' he's promised (most people consider themselves middle-income these days). But who can figure out this stuff? Even accountants now get Excedrin headaches from...

Joseph W. Barr served the shortest term of any U.S. Treasury secretary. But thanks to the Alternative Minimum Tax, which he inspired, Barr may cast a long shadow over the finances of middle-class America. This is a cautionary tale about how tax-the-rich rhetoric can rebound on the middle class. The story also shows that even the Internal Revenue Service can get one right. President Johnson appointed Barr on Dec. 21, 1968. On Jan. 17, 1969, three days before President Nixon's inaugural, Barr testified before Congress's Joint Economic Committee. His testimony, immortalized on microfilm at the Library of Congress, was unabashedly...

Because I need to know the economic implications of the tax code, I have been doing my own taxes for many years. I certainly use a computer, but last year’s efforts usually help this year’s outcomes. Not much this year. In calculating my charitable deductions, I must first determine if I had a carryover of unused deductions because contributions may have exceeded the 30 percent contribution limit, unless, of course, I am eligible for the 50 percent limit relative to adjusted gross income. If I contribute an appreciable asset, I must know if it is the 30 percent maximum variety...

Top IRS official caught by alternative tax Newsday WASHINGTON — The nation's top tax collector is the latest victim of the alternative minimum tax. While most Americans are still working through the details of their W-2s and 1040s, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Mark Everson said last week he has finished his calculations and filed his return. But to his surprise, Everson has been forced to pay the alternative minimum tax, called AMT, for the first time. Enacted by Congress in 1970 to corral 155 wealthy tax dodgers, the AMT evolved into a parallel structure that sets 26 percent and 28...

<p>WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- The top U.S. tax official, Mark Everson, has just finished preparing his own tax returns and -- surprise! -- he thinks the tax code is too complicated.</p> <p>Everson, the Internal Revenue Service Commissioner, said he has finished his calculations and filed his return, Newsday reported Monday.</p>

<p>As a reporter, I had covered every jot and tittle of last year's $350 billion tax cut, so it was with some relish that my wife loaded up our tax software last month to learn just how generous President Bush would be to us with our tax rebate.</p>

<p>March 15 (Bloomberg) -- You know you are hitting the wall on a tax issue when a financial planner throws up her hands and says, ``I honestly don't have a thing to say about it.''</p> <p>That was the response from the frustrated and embarrassed planner when I asked her what taxpayers could do about the despised alternative minimum tax (AMT) this year. ``I got to pay it (the AMT),'' she said. ``It's annoying to me. They should change the law.''</p>

<p>Hordes of people are heading for serious tax trouble -- and might not know it.</p> <p>The culprit: a rising and misunderstood menace known as the alternative minimum tax, or AMT. As its name implies, this is another way that many people are supposed to calculate their income tax. You pay the larger amount.</p>

The AMT now sideswipes 3 million taxpayers. Think you're not one of them? Better cross your fingers Nina Olsen has been practicing tax law for nearly 30 years. These days, she's the nation's taxpayer advocate -- the in-house representative of ordinary citizens at the Internal Revenue Service. And she knows about as much as anyone about the tax code. But Olsen was stunned last spring when she finished running her return through a commercial tax-prep program. There on line 43 of her Form 1040 was an extra levy of $721. "I was just like, 'Wait a minute, how did that...

Beware: The alternative minimum tax could soon snag you. The minimum tax, enacted to make sure that even the ultra-rich pay some income taxes, may hit 44 million households, including families making less than $50,000 a year simply because they have lots of children to claim as exemptions or take other tax breaks.The non-partisan, private Tax Policy Center estimates the tax will: Add an average of $3,751 annually to a tax bill, with 52 percent of affected households making $100,000 or less a year. Let many ultra-wealthy people off the hook again: Only 24.3 percent of people making over $1...

<p>WASHINGTON -- American taxpayers are about to reap their last big bonanza from an extraordinary three-year run of federal tax cutting, pocketing substantially higher refunds on their 2003 income tax returns.</p> <p>But that doesn't mean anti-tax talk in Washington will fade away.</p>

and a number of other wealthy Americans are contributing millions of dollars to grass-roots organizations engaged in the 2004 presidential election. We are deeply concerned with the direction in which the Bush administration is taking the United States and the world. If Americans reject the president's policies at the polls, we can write off the Bush Doctrine as a temporary aberration and resume our rightful place in the world. If we endorse those policies, we shall have to live with the hostility of the world and endure a vicious cycle of escalating violence. In this effort, I have committed $10...

CBS MarketWatch Tax cuts may prove a mirage for AMT payers Tuesday December 2, 10:06 pm ET By Andrea Coombes More taxpayers to be hit by AMT; plus year-end AMT tips SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- The tax cuts of 2003 may be a boon to the economy and provide welcome padding to some taxpayers' wallets, but for others those cuts will prove to be a mirage. That's because lower tax rates will push more people into paying the Alternative Minimum Tax, rendering some of those much-heralded breaks moot. ADVERTISEMENT An estimated 2.5 million U.S. taxpayers will be caught in the...