Dan Coats: “Absolutely not, I would say to the Senator from Oregon. Clearly, if you go back to the origin of the alternative minimum…”

“Absolutely not, I would say to the Senator from Oregon. Clearly, if you go back to the origin of the alternative minimum tax, it was designed to go after those handful, in comparison to the total number of taxpayers in this country, who have found creative ways of not paying any taxes whatsoever. Wealthy taxpayers have simply been able to manipulate the Tax Code legally but in a way that allowed them to avoid paying taxes altogether. That is how all of this started. What has happened is that we are now in a situation where it is grossly unfair to the majority of taxpayers in this country simply because they fall into categories that throw them into having the AMT calculated in their tax returns. It is costing them a lot of money. It was never intended to address the middle-class taxpayer, and it has grown exponentially since it started.”