Friday, April 15, 2005
More on the politics of the AMT
Today's Wall Street Journal observes that the Alternative Minimum Tax will hurt high tax "blue states" well before it hits low tax states, which has inspired some born-again tax cutters:
The WSJ must have been reading TigerHawk!
Especially, er, rich, is the fact that the AMT is biting hardest in the most liberal, high-tax states. That's because the AMT doesn't allow deductions for state and local taxes the way the regular code does. So middle-class taxpayers in New York, California and other states with high income-tax rates are getting hit sooner than people in, say, Florida or Wyoming. It is the ultimate blue-state tax.
This helps to explain why people who normally thrill to higher tax rates are suddenly up in arms. Liberal newspapers are now denouncing the AMT as a "tax increase" and blaming the White House for not doing more to stop it. "The AMT needs to be fixed," moans Senator Barbara Boxer's spokesman, in what has to be a tax-reform first. "We need to address the AMT, which is trickling down to catch more and more middle-class families in New York," says Empire State Senator Chuck Schumer, another Saul on the road to Tarrytown.
The WSJ must have been reading TigerHawk!
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