NYT ED: Mr. Bush's Stealthy Tax Increase (Alt Min=a big middle-class tax

[papau]

Mr. Bush's Stealthy Tax Increase
The New York Times, editorial
March 13, 2005

President Bush is presiding over a big middle-class tax hike.

As recently as 2000 , only about one million taxpayers owed the alternative minimum tax, created by a provision in the federal tax code that is supposed to prevent multimillionaires from using loopholes to avoid paying their fair share. But by the time Americans file their 2005 taxes, some 3 million taxpayers will owe the alternative tax and by 2010, nearly 30 million taxpayers will be hit -- among them, a staggering 94 percent of married filers who have children and make $75,000 to $100,000.

Big families in high-tax states -- New York, New Jersey, California and Massachusetts -- will bear the heaviest burden, largely because the alternative tax increasingly disallows write-offs for dependents, state income taxes and local property taxes. On average, by 2010, people who make under $100,000 and owe the alternative tax will pay an additional $1,321 in federal income taxes, while alternative tax payers who make between $100,000 and $200,000 will owe an additional $2,592.

Meanwhile, and most outrageous, only 35 percent of taxpayers who earn $1 million or more will owe the alternative tax.

•
Why does the alternative tax increasingly afflict middle-rung taxpayers for whom it was never intended, while largely ignoring the highest-end taxpayers it is meant for?

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

<snip>
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/opinion/13sun1.html

[indepat]

1. The American people, in numbers too large to fathom, ratified all this

[Moderator]

2. papau

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.


Thank you.


DU Moderator

[papau]

3. Good point - but It's too late to edit - please edit - thanks n/t

n/t