Chuck Grassley: “This is an estimate of how various proposed fixes to the alternative minimum tax will impact revenues expected to be…”

“This is an estimate of how various proposed fixes to the alternative minimum tax will impact revenues expected to be collected under the current law. What you should note is that full repeal aside--which I suggest is about the only way to do it but not considering that--each of those proposals will still allow the alternative minimum tax to bring hundreds of billions of dollars into the Treasury. If you consider any proposal aside from full repeal, you are saying that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people in our country deserve to bear the burden of an alternative minimum tax that is not even, in some instances today, taxing to people who are supposed to pay the tax: the very wealthy. One possible solution is to continue doing what we have been doing for the past several years. Ever since 2001, the Finance Committee has produced legislation that has kept additional taxpayers from falling prey to the alternative minimum tax because of inflation. In the tax increase prevention and reconciliation bill of 2005, we were able to extend the hold-harmless clause through December 31, just ended. That hold harmless now has expired and action will need to be taken this very year or the AMT will return to its pre-2001 exemption levels, and tens of millions of taxpayers will fall into the AMT and have to pay it this year. Suppose we are able to continue enacting 1- or 2-year temporary patches, as we did last year.…”