Alternative Minimum Tax: Make over $75K? Have
 

The AMT: The Tax Hike hidden in the current tax rules.

My family is WAY into the AMT, and none of our Unreimbursed Business Expenses, or State Income or Property Taxes helps us at all...those deductionsare not allowed in the AMT.


The AMT was designed to make sure millionaires paid some tax...now it is affecting millions of people:

People in the 35% tax bracket, don't pay AMT as the AMT rate is only 28%.

Quote:
In 2012—and barring congressional action—45 percent of all tax filers with cash income between $75,000 and $100,000 will pay the AMT

Quote:
In 2012, if there is no AMT patch: Only 51 percent of millionaires will pay the AMT, compared with 94 percent of those with income between $200,000 and $500,000.

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Under current law, 44 percent of filers with three or more children will find themselves on the AMT in 2012, compared to only 17 percent for those without children.

If your state/locality has high taxes, you are 2.5 times more likely to have to pay AMT.

Quote:
In 2012, with expiration of the temporary AMT patch, married couples will be 12 times as likely to owe AMT as singles.

In 2012, without an "AMT Patch", 90% of married couple with two or more children and adjusted gross incomes between $75K and $100K will be paying AMT.

I LUV the AMT:
Tax the Middle Class more.
Tax Married people more.
Tax families more.
Tax the rich less.

cliff
GRB
PS-If you are doing your taxes by hand (which I don't recommend....partly because of this AMT stuff), you will have to do your taxes twice: Once using the "normal" way, and once using the AMT, and will then have to pay whichever tax bill is higher.
If you do NOT calculate your taxes the AMT way, and the IRS audits you, and you should have paid the higher AMT tax rates, you will have to pay the additional tax amount that you owe, plus penalties and interest.
Now it takes even MORE time to file!!!
(I recommend TurboTax, or taking your taxes to a professional...the AMT is making it harder for MANY people to do their taxes correctly!)

Clearly you are now rich, you must understand this is defined for you. I hope you have some change left to believe in, you may enjoy the following:

We can further understand the precariousness of many American households by examining IRS tax data. The top 25% of taxpayers--34 million workers out of a workforce of 160 million and 140 million wage earners--pay almost 90% of all Federal income taxes. Where Do You Rank as a Taxpayer?

An adjusted gross income (AGI) of $66,193 or more puts you in the top 25% of earners. The top-earning 25% of taxpayers reported 65.81% of all AGI and paid 87.30% of total federal income taxes ( $755.9 billion).



How much do you need to make to be in the top 50% of earners? Just $32,396. Fall below that level and you are in the bottom half, along with nearly 70 million of your fellow taxpayers. All told, that group earned just 13% of the income reported on 2009 tax returns. And they coughed up 2.25% of all the income taxes paid.

All these numbers mask the sobering reality that 38 Million Workers Made Less Than $10,000 in 2010-- Equal to California's Population (The Atlantic magazine)

If we dig into the data, we find that the top 25% (34 million workers) is really the top 33%, as only 104 million tax returns actually pay any Federal tax--and as noted above, the bottom 70 million paid a scant 13% of all Federal taxes while the top 34 million paid 87% of all income taxes.

Many Unhappy Returns? (America's aggregate 1040, from IRS tax data).

In 2009, the IRS reported 140.5 Million personal income tax returns were filed. From this starting point, 36.3 Million returns (or, one quarter of the total) are lost to the tax base because of losses, exclusions or deductions. By line 43, taxable income, only 104.2 Million returns survive. In aggregate dollar amounts, total income from all sources falls from $7.7 Trillion to $5.1 Trillion — a decline of more than one-third. This latter amount is what truly constitutes the tax base, since it is the income ultimately subjected to tax.

Read more here, tax donkey:http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-...e-class-doomed

http://advisorperspectives.com/dshor...py-Returns.php

My first choice is a VAT, or National Sales Tax (of course with NO income/estate/capital gains taxes, etc.).

My second choice is a Flat Income Tax: 22%? of ALL the monies you received in that tax year, regardless of the source, is paid out in tax, above a floor ($8K per person, maybe???).

What I don't like about the Flat Tax, is that if you have criminal income then you won't pay the Flat Tax.....With a National Sales Tax, your criminal income will be taxed when you buy stuff.

cliff
GRB

Not sure why the AMT was never adjusted for inflation?

Then again, I think I know why.

Obamas Paid 20.5 Percent Tax on $789,674 in 2011 Income - Businessweek


To keep this non political. Mitt Romney apparently paid even less.


Not sure how this guys beat the AMT....

You DON'T want a VAT. Value Added Tax taxes everything in the path of production. It taxes the land the farm plants the seeds, it taxes the seeds, it taxes his tractor, it taxes his fuel, it taxes his fertilizer, it taxes his harvester, it taxes the transport to market, it's taxed when it's sold at market, it's taxed when the mill grinds it to flour, it's taxed when it's sold as flour, it's taxed when it's transported to the bakery, it's taxed when the bakery produces the bread, it's taxed when the bread is transported to the supermarket, and it's taxed when you buy it.

The name gives it away, Value Added Tax. The item is taxed every time the value of the item is changed or modified.

It is one of the most oppressive and insidious taxes.

A sales tax or consumption tax is far better. I think a combination of a low flat tax (with exemptions below a poverty line) and a consumption/sales tax is probably the best of all worlds and fairest.

Fairtax.org is only the consumption part of it, but a great start, IMO.

I agree - resist VAT at all costs.

A national sales tax is much fairer all round - as long as it replaces income tax and is not in addition to income tax, (like that will ever happen :mad:).

Having lived and worked in Europe for many years, I have first-hand experience of how insidious VAT is. If I remember correctly, it started off at 7.5% (in the UK). It's now at 20%.

And as LowSlowT2 says, it gets added every time a sale is made, whether raw materials to make a product, or the product itself - at all stages from manufacturer to final point of sale.

Fair Tax .org

National sales tax, as long as it is tied to an abolition of the income tax.

The infrastructure for a National sales tax is already there - it's just a few more lines of code at the retail level. And as atpcliff said, it captures all of that activity going on now under the radar. If a drug dealer buys a 12-pack of beer or a bottle of Cristal he is now in the system. And yes, sales tax, not VAT is the way to go.

Unfortunately, that knot may come untied and we will have both taxes. :(