The AMT

Tax Panel Wants to End Alternative Minimum Tax
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
Published: July 21, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/21/business/21tax.html?

Over the years, more and more middle-income Americans have become subject to the tax (AMT). Almost four million taxpayers will owe it this year. Unless the law is changed, 20.5 million will owe it in 2006, and 51.3 million, about 45 percent of all taxpayers, will owe it in 2015.

Mr. Mack set five goals for the panel's recommendations: tax filing should be easy and straightforward; the system should be fair and without gimmicks; inefficient tax breaks and loopholes designed for special interests should be scrapped; savings should be encouraged; and barriers to competitiveness in American business should be removed.

Surrounded by breaking News, the floating Yuan and a drop of 34,000 in Jobless claims, this Author chooses to pick on the Tax Panel instead; closely resembling the Panel itself, which never approaches the real issues. Why is the AMT hated by Everyone? Because it is practically the only thing still getting people to pay taxes. It is as the Panel said, they could not agree on how to come up with the $1.2 trillion worth of lost tax revenue(by the way, this should be yearly tax revenue lost by 2015).

Analysis of the News

1) The Chinese will manage the Yuan float to maximize sale of Chinese Goods to the U.S., while paying the least possible for expensive Oil (traded in Dollars).
2) The drop of Jobless claims means little without corresponding data of the average Entry-level Wage for new Hires, knowing We are still around 2.58 continuous claims.
3) The London bombs were obvious amateurs thinking to incite fear, not being aware of London history; from the Great London Fire to the Blitz, Londoners stood fast, and they will again. lgl