Alternative Minimum Tax

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by saden1

To those who want to scrap AMT altogether I say you don't know WTF you're talking about. Does the law need to be updated? Absolutely! Are the principles behind the law just? Jesus would find it just!

There are so many schemes available to rich people to lower their tax rate it's insane. Take Warren Buffet for example who end up with a 17.7% tax bill. There's a reason behind AMT and that is to stop people with money from gaming the system by paying themselves $1 in annual salary, making the rest of their income through incentive based options and investments, and ultimately ends up paying 15% capital gains tax on all of their income.

Nobody's arguing the principle, saden. They're criticizing the execution.

Making sure everyone pays their fair share of tax makes all the sense in the world. Failing to adjust the threshold for inflation, however, is nothing short of f*cking retarded. Good idea, but as usual, f*cked up by the geniuses within the US government.

Getting rid of the AMT would be more fair than keeping it as-is. As it stands now, it's one of the great tax injustices of all-time. Ideally, they'd keep the AMT (because it's a decent idea) but simply adjust the threshold up. It'd be pretty easy - go back to the year the threshold was set, multiply it by the CPI for every year until 2008, bringing it up into the $200-300K range. Then index it to inflation moving forward.

[That Guy]

making 75k in a household in fairfax country is barely enough to pay a mortgage. without Cost of Living adjustments, 75k is an awful low household number...

btw, how about killing corn subsidies first. they tried about a month ago (or less) and instead of the original "if you earn more than 500k total income, you get no government money" turned into 5mill total income (which is a big enough sum to make it easy to spread around with kickbacks and defeat entirely)...

i mean, i'm a nice guy, but f'ing letterman shouldn't be getting 270k a year from (me, you, etc through) the government. those farm subsidies where supposed to protect joe average farmer from losing the ranch, not as a tax shelter for the rich and corporate (and already profitable) farmers.

[firstdown]

My Bad.

[mooby]

For me the solution to the AMT is simple, just adjust the threshold for inflation like Schneed said. It was designed for the rich, if you adjust it for the rich due to inflation then it continues serving its' purpose instead of hurting middle class citizens. Unfortunately I don't think our current gov't would realize this lol. I hope in this case I'm wrong.

[saden1]

What about socialized welfare for farmers? Socialized police force? Socialized fire departments? Socialized education? Socialized defense department, homeland security, and wars? Socialized corporate welfare? Socialized disaster relief? Socialized foreign aid?

Quit with the socialized b.s. I pay for things I don't want to pay for too and stop acting like you're the only one that gets money taken out of your pockets.

I swear, I wish we had the ability to directly choose where our tax dollars goes!

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by saden1

I swear, I wish we had the ability to directly choose where our tax dollars goes!

We do. It's called the general election.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

We do. It's called the general election.

Having you congressman/senator/president pick and choose which programs to fund/not fund is directly? Vote for whoever you want and you'll still have a farm bill, pork, etc. Direct means directly choosing in your tax return you want fund specific programs and direct where your tax money goes.

[GTripp0012]

Originally Posted by saden1

Having you congressman/senator/president pick and choose which programs to fund/not fund is directly? Vote for whoever you want and you'll still have a farm bill, pork, etc. Direct means directly choosing in your tax return you want fund specific programs and direct where your tax money goes.

A good idea in theory, but in practicality, a total disaster waiting to happen.

People are fickle. The media is everywhere. I, for one, know I don't want the media deciding which gov't programs we can fund and which ones we can't.

I understand that you wouldn't choose which programs to push based on media spin, but you'd be in the minority on that one.

[JoeRedskin]

I guess my prior answer was a bit snarky. It's just the concept of direct voting for taxes is ridiculous (as GTripp said). Everything would become a popularity contest. You think electioneering is bad now - Imagine if various departments of the Govt. had to compete for your dollars on a dollar by dollar basis? In depth analysis of spending needs? Consistency in funding to acheive long term goals? Forget it. Mob rule by money is just as bad as mob rule by violence.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

I guess my prior answer was a bit snarky. It's just the concept of direct voting for taxes is ridiculous (as GTripp said). Everything would become a popularity contest. You think electioneering is bad now - Imagine if various departments of the Govt. had to compete for your dollars on a dollar by dollar basis? In depth analysis of spending needs? Consistency in funding to acheive long term goals? Forget it. Mob rule by money is just as bad as mob rule by violence.

Of course it's not practical or wise, I'm just frustrated with people always complaining...socialized this, socialized that...everyone has something they don't want to pay but that doesn't mean they are unworthy of being funded with tax dollars (of course there are some exceptions). This country is a union, we're all in it together, and we're as strong as our weakest link.

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by saden1

...and we're as strong as our weakest link.

Which is our increasingly gov't and policitians in my opinion.