On the recordSeptember 15, 2010
while we are talking about taxes, I wish bring up something that is significant to about 26 million Americans. It doesn't deal only with small businesses, but obviously a lot of small businesses are affected by the issue I bring to my colleagues' attention. I do this several times a year. It deals with the alternative minimum tax, a tax that I am sure that out of the 26 million people who might be hit this year if we don't do something, a lot those are small businesspeople. The AMT was first enacted by Congress in 1969. The alternative minimum tax was created in reaction to some very wealthy and very high income individuals paying no income tax. These high-income individuals were able to do this because they were able to claim a huge amount of tax credits and deductions legally. Probably the sensible way to have dealt with this problem would have been to curtail the proliferation of those tax credits, tax deductions, and tax expenditures at that time. Unfortunately, that was not the course Congress took when the alternative minimum tax was set up, now 40 years ago.
