Quote:
Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
But am I right that what you are proposing is eliminating or lowering indivudal deductions for state taxes or charitable contributions for individuals?
|
Huh? I don't think I've proposed anything.
The AMT eliminates basically all exemptions, except home mortgage interest and charitable deductions. If you're concerned about equity, expanding the number of things one can take deductions for is a good way. But, we've done that--it's called the income tax. Why would you retain the AMT, but allow people to deduct HMI and state taxes, which, based on a quick review of
recent data, provide about 2/3 of all deductions, when it would make far more sense to eliminate the the numerous other deductions that give rise to concern about people paying too little income tax? That is, if you believe that people should be able to deduct HMI, state taxes, and charitable giving no matter what (i.e., regardless of whether they're under AMT or not), then you must believe that anyone who can use those deductions to eliminate (or nearly eliminate) income tax liability is not doing anything wrong or "paying too little". Given that, your focus should be on the "other" deductions--why not eliminate those instead (I have no idea what they might be), and avoid the existing "dual" system whereby people have to calcualte their tax liability, and then calculate it again?
Now, care to tell me why the R's are wrong to want to get rid of the corporate AMT? You know exactly why they're doing it, and it's the same thing the D's would do if confronted with a proposal to raise teh minimum wage 50c--reject it.
Threaded Mode