They’re actually talking about getting rid of a tax:
Democratic leaders this week vowed to make the alternative minimum tax a centerpiece of next year’s budget debate, saying the levy threatens to unfairly increase tax bills for millions of middle-class families by the end of the decade.
The complex and expensive tax was designed to prevent the super-rich from using deductions, credits and other shelters to avoid paying the Internal Revenue Service. But because of rising incomes, the tax is expected to expand to more than 30 million taxpayers in 2010 from 3.8 million mostly well-off households in 2006.
Its not exactly Reaganomics, but its a start.
Doug,
The problem with the ATM, not being indexed, is easy to fix. Reset the benchmark, and index the tax with the wage index each year.
The hard part, and what they aren’t talking about, is how do they make up the revenue that it’s generating? Pay Go is one of their other centerpieces, so to eliminate that tax they have to either cut spending, or increase taxes somewhere a like amount.
Yes, the indexing is where they can fix it. I don’t expect to see it go away completely. No way to make up the income.
Biggest reason I’ve seen of late for folks being subjected to AMT is the lower capital gains rate.