Ron Kind: “I strongly support providing relief to middle-income Americans from an encroaching Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).…”

“I strongly support providing relief to middle-income Americans from an encroaching Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). Without action this year to extend the current AMT exemption levels passed in 2003, millions of Americans will feel the AMT crunch in 2005. While the AMT was enacted in 1969 to prevent high-income earners from using loopholes in the tax code to avoid paying their fair share, the AMT is increasingly becoming an unfair tax burden on millions of middle-income Americans. Because of factors including inflation and income tax reductions, the complex calculations used by individuals and couples to determine if they must pay any AMT have adjusted and now unfairly punish middle-income families, particularly those with children in high-tax states. For the third year in a row, the Internal Revenue Service's Taxpayer Advocate Service's Report to Congress lists AMT encroachment as the most serious problem encountered by taxpayers. The AMT now impacts more than 2.4 million Americans. Unless reformed, the AMT will impact 12.4 million in 2005 and more than 30 million Americans in 2010. On top of that, even more taxpayers will be forced to perform intense computations to determine if AMT applies to them.”