Mr.Kitchen
New Blood
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2001
- Messages
- 19
I want to talk about the US tax system. I don't really want to discuss whether it is fair or not instead i want to figure out what the current system is actually doing.
A great example of what i am talking about is the AMT or the alternative minimum tax. This tax was originally passed by congress as an attempt to prevent the very wealthy from paying no income tax. In this it failed miserabley. It did however accomplish somthing else.
Due to legislation passed in the early 80's this tax does not adjust with inflation like regular income tax. This fact means that it has slowly begun to prey upon the upper middle and middle class eating away at tax credits and other benefits congress assigned them. It also applies to such dedcutions like the standard deduction for people who do not itemize.
That this would happen is not a suprise to the people that implemented the legislation concerning it. The reagan administartion knew that this would happen but they left it in their tax cut proposal in order to keep the bill revenue neutral. They considered it a undesirable bu they assumed that future adminstrations would correct it. Too date none have and the bush administration has stated that they will not address the issue until 2005. The kerry campaign has said nothing about it does not seem likely too. the income range for people affected by this tax the most 90,000-500,000.
The information in this post was covered in more detail in the book "perfectly legal" by David Kay Johnston. All qoutes and statemnets of position are from that book.
I was wondering if anyone wanted to discuss this bit of information
Jeremy
A great example of what i am talking about is the AMT or the alternative minimum tax. This tax was originally passed by congress as an attempt to prevent the very wealthy from paying no income tax. In this it failed miserabley. It did however accomplish somthing else.
Due to legislation passed in the early 80's this tax does not adjust with inflation like regular income tax. This fact means that it has slowly begun to prey upon the upper middle and middle class eating away at tax credits and other benefits congress assigned them. It also applies to such dedcutions like the standard deduction for people who do not itemize.
That this would happen is not a suprise to the people that implemented the legislation concerning it. The reagan administartion knew that this would happen but they left it in their tax cut proposal in order to keep the bill revenue neutral. They considered it a undesirable bu they assumed that future adminstrations would correct it. Too date none have and the bush administration has stated that they will not address the issue until 2005. The kerry campaign has said nothing about it does not seem likely too. the income range for people affected by this tax the most 90,000-500,000.
The information in this post was covered in more detail in the book "perfectly legal" by David Kay Johnston. All qoutes and statemnets of position are from that book.
I was wondering if anyone wanted to discuss this bit of information
Jeremy
