Tag Archives: Alternative Minimum Tax

The Tax Bill Passed Last Night

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This is the summary from Thomas.gov of the tax bill that passed the Senate last night.

H.R.1 — 115th Congress (2017-2018)

Introduced in House (11/02/2017)

Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

This bill amends the Internal Revenue Code to reduce tax rates and modify policies, credits, and deductions for individuals and businesses.

With respect to individuals, the bill:

  • replaces the seven existing tax brackets (10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, 35%, and 39.6%) with four brackets (12%, 25%, 35%, and 39.6%),
  • increases the standard deduction,
  • repeals the deduction for personal exemptions,
  • establishes a 25% maximum rate on the business income of individuals,
  • increases the child tax credit and establishes a new family tax credit,
  • repeals the overall limitation on certain itemized deductions,
  • limits the mortgage interest deduction for debt incurred after November 2, 2017, to mortgages of up to $500,000 (currently $1 million),
  • repeals the deduction for state and local income or sales taxes not paid or accrued in a trade or business,
  • repeals the deduction for medical expenses,
  • consolidates and repeals several education-related deductions and credits,
  • repeals the alternative minimum tax, and
  • repeals the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes in six years.

For businesses, the bill:

  • reduces the corporate tax rate from a maximum of 35% to a flat 20% rate (25% for personal services corporations),
  • allows increased expensing of the costs of certain property,
  • limits the deductibility of net interest expenses to 30% of the business’s adjusted taxable income,
  • repeals the work opportunity tax credit,
  • terminates the exclusion for interest on private activity bonds,
  • modifies or repeals various energy-related deductions and credits,
  • modifies the taxation of foreign income, and
  • imposes an excise tax on certain payments from domestic corporations to related foreign corporations.

The bill also repeals or modifies several additional credits and deductions for individuals and businesses.

A Short Primer On The Debt Crisis

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Last night Hugh Hewitt spent three hours with Representative John Campbell talking about the debt crisis.It was an amazingly educational show.

Representative Campbell’s House of Representatives web page lists some of his committee assignments:

As a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, he has taken an active part in addressing the country’s top economic issues, including mortgage lending, corporate governance, banking reform, and insurance regulation. Through the recent economic crisis, he was influential in the responses to the crisis that averted a collapse in our markets and economy. Currently, he serves on the Capital Markets and International Monetary Policy subcommittees.

John also serves on the House Committee on the Budget, where he has had a hand in crafting portions of The Roadmap for America’s Future.  This plan championed by Congressman Paul Ryan contains a comprehensive proposal to ensure health and retirement security for all Americans, to lift the debt burdens that are mounting due to reckless spending, to reform and simplify the tax code, and to promote jobs and competitiveness in the 21st century global economy.  John is also a leading author of the Taxpayer Choice Act, which would make America’s tax system simpler and fairer by providing the opportunity to take advantage of an optional flat tax, in addition to repealing the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

As a Certified Public Accountant and a former small business owner, Representative Campbell provided a lot of insight into where we are in terms of our current financial crisis.

America crossed over its debt ceiling of $16.4 trillion on December 31st. What that means is that the government cannot issue any new debt. The government is required, at least temporarily, to live within their means.

There were three main points to the discussion:

1. The debt crisis is coming and it could occur at any moment.

2. The debt crisis is caused by a spending problem–not a tax problem.

3. There are immediate spending reforms that would address the problem.

One of the things that I learned from the program is how Washington spends money. There is discretionary spending and mandatory spending. Discretionary spending includes defense, government agencies, etc. Mandatory spending includes all entitlement programs. The three main entitlement programs are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Other entitlement programs include food stamps, student loans, etc. These two types of spending are funded in different ways–discretionary spending has to be approved by Congress every year and signed into law by the President. Mandatory spending is already law, and unless Congress acts to change it, the spending automatically occurs.  Therefore, when President Obama says that raising the debt ceiling is only paying the bills that Congress has voted for, he is not being entirely accurate.

We are in financial crisis. Unless the spending is slowed, we will continue to see high unemployment and slow economic growth. Until more Americans begin to pay attention and vote for economic growth, rather than against it, America will continue to decline.

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Was Obamacare About Healthcare Or Taxes ?

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Reuters reported on Monday that the Internal Revenue Service has released new rules concerning dividends and capital gains as part of the 2010 healthcare law. The obvious questions here is, “What do dividends and capital gains have to do with healthcare?” Evidently more than we knew.

The article reports:

The tax affects only individuals with more than $200,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and married couples filing jointly with more than $250,000 of MAGI.

The tax applies to a broad range of investment securities ranging from stocks and bonds to commodity securities and specialized derivatives.

The 159 pages of rules spell out when the tax applies to trusts and annuities, as well as to individual securities traders.

Released late on Friday, the new regulations include a 0.9 percent healthcare tax on wages for high-income individuals.

Please keep in mind that the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) was originally enacted to impact only the wealthy. As of 2011, a single person who made $48,450 was impacted by that tax. I really don’t consider $48,450 wealthy. How long will it be before the new healthcare taxes begin to impact the middle class?

The article further points out:

The IRS plans to release a new form for taxpayers to fill out for this tax when filing 2013 returns.

Oh joy.

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The January 2013 Surprise

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Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an article on the fiscal fiasco that is waiting for America on January 1, 2013.

The article reminds us what is coming:

‘The way to deal with sequestration is put revenues on the table.” That is third-ranking Senate Democrat Charles Schumer of New York’s coded way of telling congressional Republicans that if you want to prevent the budgetary devastation of the U.S. military, you’ll have to break your promises to voters and agree to major tax hikes.

After the presidential and congressional elections this November, a lame-duck Congress will address an impending fiscal calamity.

The first thing you have to remember here is that in the mind of the average Democrat, Washington will NEVER have enough money to spend!

So what happens between election day and January 2013? First of all, you have a lame duck Congress. If the Democrats lose the Senate, they will do everything they can to make sure everyone pays highers taxes.

Even if the Democrats don’t get away with raising taxes, this is what happens on January 1st:

Heritage Foundation senior fellow and former Treasury Department tax economist J.D. Foster recently warned that on New Year’s Day, “some $494 billion in tax hikes will crash down on America’s taxpayers and economy” — not just the expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts that gave us a boom and cut unemployment to under 5%, but “a jump in the payroll tax rate,” “the return of the death tax,” ” a bigger, badder” Alternative Minimum Tax, and the tax hikes for ObamaCare.

The ObamaCare 3.8% surcharge goes into effect in 2013, “not just on wage and salary income, but all income, thus breaking the historical link between Medicare and labor earnings,” Foster recently noted.

If we are to avoid fiscal catastrophe in the coming year, we need to make sure the Republicans control both the House and the Senate after the November election. That way as soon as Congress is sworn in in January, they can quickly deal with any mischief done in the lame-duck session.

Intentionally or otherwise, the Democrat party is in the process of taking a wrecking ball to the economic well-being of our country. They need to be stopped.

 

 

 

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Today Is April 15th–Unless Congress Acts, The Taxes We Paid This Year Will Seem Miniscule Next Year

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 On Friday CNS News posted a story about the coming ‘automatic’ tax increases that will begin on January 1, 2013. The tax burden of the average American family will increase by $3,800–in a single year. Congress will deny being responsible for the increase–they didn’t pass anything. So what happened–the “Bush tax cuts” are set to expire. Those “tax cuts for the rich” saved the average American family $3,800 every year they were in effect.

The article reports:

It’s a near-perfect fiscal storm — occurring just after a major national election, no less. Among the tax breaks that are expiring: the Bush tax cuts that occurred in 2001 and 2003, the payroll tax cut, and the tax cut from the 2009 stimulus.

That’s not all. The estate tax, known more accurately as the Death Tax, rises to 55 percent. The 100 percent exemption for business investment goes away. Also among the soon-to-be-missing: the patch that lawmakers passed to ensure that the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) doesn’t snare more and more middle-income earners (instead of the super-rich it was originally designed for).

This $494 billion increase is unprecedented in scope. To give you a better idea of how big it really is, consider that all of the tax hikes in Obamacare — a huge tax hike in and of itself — add up to $502 billion over a 10-year period. Taxmageddon will extract almost that much from Americans next year alone. Saddling a “jobless” recovery with this monster hike is spectacularly bad policy.

This disaster can be avoided in one of three ways–the present Congress can stop it by extending the Bush tax cuts, we can elect a new Congress that will stop it as soon as they are sworn in, or Congress could redo the tax code in a transparent manner that is fair to all taxpayers The first option is highly unlikely, the second option is extremely necessary, and the third option will happen right after pigs fly.

 

 

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Warren Buffett Opposes The Buffett Tax

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On Friday the Washington Examiner posted a transcript of an interview of Warren Buffett on CNBC where Mr. Buffett stated that he did not support President Obama’s new tax pollicy. Howeber, Mr. Buffett did state that Counselor to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner had called him to ask his permission to use his name for President Obama’s new tax policy.

The transcript states:

CNBC: Does that you mean you disagree with the president’s new jobs proposal which would be paid for by raising taxes on households with incomes over $250,000?

Buffett: There is another program that I won’t be discussing. My program is to have on ultra rich people who are paying very low tax rates. Not just all the rich people. And it would probably apply to 50,000 people in a population of 300 million.

It doesn’t sound as if Mr. Buffett is totally on board with the White House. The thing to remember here is that there is only so much money you can actually get by taxing the ‘rich.’ The rich have tax lawyers and CPA’s to help them avoid paying any more taxes than they are required to pay. When the government decides it wants more money coming in and does not want to cut spending, eventually it works out that the middle class pays more taxes because that’s the tax bracket that encompasses the majority of Americans. The best example of that is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) which was originally only supposed to impact a very small number of Americans. In 1970, only 19,000 taxpayers owed an AMT. It is now estimated by the Congressional Research Services that if the cuts to the regular income tax are made permanent, the number of taxpayers subject to the AMT will increase from about 1.8 million in 2001 to over 41 million by 2013. We need to remember as the President’s tax proposals are debated, that even when we are told that taxes are only going to impact the rich, they eventually impact the rest of us. New taxes are always a bad idea. Fiscal responsibility on the part of Congress and the President is what is needed.


 

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