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Report  Says  Bush’s  Tax Cuts Will Cause Some To Pay More

September 24, 2005
By David Cay Johnston

 

Over the next 10 years, Americans will not receive nearly $750 billion  in tax cuts sponsored by President Bush because the cuts will be offset alternative minimum tax, a new report by Congressional tax specialists shows.

The report, prepared by the staff of the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, said that from 2006 to 2015, Americans would pay as much as 1.1 trillion more under the alternative minimum tax, partly as a result of the Bush tax cuts.

The Bush tax cuts reduced the bill for millions of taxpayers to a level that will subject them to the alternative minimum tax instead of the standard tax rate. As a result, the report said, their tax saving would be reduced by a total of $739.2 billion over the 10 years.

Congress has passed a modest adjustment to the alternative minimum tax allow more taxpayers to take advantage of the Bush tax cuts, but that expires at the year-end.

Even if it is extended, the report said, the alternative minimum tax would take away $628.5 million in tax savings, with $416.5 billion of that attributable to the Bush tax cuts over the 10 years.

George K. Yin, the joint committee’s chief of staff, wrote that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 account for just under two-thirds of the increase in collections under the alternative tax. The report was prepared to a request from John Buckley, chief tax lawyer for Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Families with children who own their homes will be hit hardest by the increased alternative tax.

The Treasury Department said the “administration is as concerned as anyone about the growth of the A.M.T. and its effect on taxpayers” and that it support the temporary adjustment.

The alternative tax is a “priority to be addressed by the President’s Advisory Panel for Federal Tax Reform for the long term,” said Taylor Griffin, a Treasury spokesman.

Republican tax specialists said Mr. Yin’s report was accurate, but created a misleading impression. Mark  A. Prater,  chief  tax lawyer for Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, said the root problem was not the tax cuts, but failure to index the alternative tax for inflation.

Mr. Prater also cited testimony by several tax specialists about  inflation,  including  Leonard  E.  Burman,   co-director  of the Tax Policy Center. But Mr. Burman,  in an interview  yesterday, said that the design of the Bush tax cuts, not inflation, was the major reason the alternative tax produced more revenue after 2001.

The tax was initially enacted in 1969 to ensure that people making the equivalent of $1 million in today’s dollars or more could not live tax-free. Because of changes in the law over the years, however, those making more than $1 million will pay little of the increase minimum tax, according to the Tax Policy Center. The original alternative minimum tax in 1969 limited the use of exotic tax deductions, like the oil depletion allowance.

But since then, Congress has moved to allow those exotic deductions, denying individuals their personal exemptions, deductions for state and local taxes and interest on home equity loans not used for home improvements. Some families are forced to pay the alternative tax even if they take only the standard deduction. Some medical bills also cannot be deducted under the alternative tax, forcing the seriously sick or injured to pay higher income taxes. Since early 1999, more than 100 members of Congress have publicly attacked the provision that raises the tax bills of the severely sick- so far without any effect.

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