Congress voted today 352 to 64 to extend the exclusion of the Alternative Minimum Tax for about 21 million taxpayers. This tax, originally enacted in 1969 to make sure “wealthy” American couldn’t avoid paying taxes using tricky loopholes and tax tricks, has now begun to affect people generally considered middle-class to upper middle-class.
If the extension had not been made, taxpayers would have been looking at paying an additional $2,000 or so this year. To permanently correct the problem and still have an Alternative Minimum Tax would require some form of adjustment for inflation so that the tax would only apply to whatever level would be deemed “wealthy”.
