Chuck Grassley: “The concept underlying the alternative minimum tax fixes highlighted in this article in the Washington Post is that the…”

“The concept underlying the alternative minimum tax fixes highlighted in this article in the Washington Post is that the alternative minimum tax could be abolished for families and individuals making less than a given amount, and that the resulting revenue loss would then be offset by a surtax--I want to emphasize: creating a new tax, a surtax--on what the article refers to as our ``nation's wealthiest households.'' Now, when they use the term the ``nation's wealthiest households,'' remember that was the whole concept of the alternative minimum tax in the first place, in 1969, to tax a few thousand people with this tax, and now they are not even being hit by it. I will bet you, you could have this surtax, and you are still going to find people who can hire the best lawyers to avoid paying that tax. When I say ``avoid paying that tax,'' I mean avoid paying that tax in a legal way, not in a way that is extralegal. There are two basic proposals that have been laid out in that Washington Post article. One of them, put forward by a member of the Ways and Means Committee of the other body, would use a 4.3 percent surtax on income over $500,000 to offset the elimination of the alternative minimum tax for people earning less than $250,000 a year. Now, it is estimated in the article that the surtax of 4.3 percent would affect about 1 million families.”