4 ms·

The bill text is here and is pretty easy to decipher: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5719 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/

The bill text is here and is pretty easy to decipher: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5719 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5719

harryh 10y ago
Why all the goofy eligibility rules? Just get rid of the rule where exercising stock options counts as income under the AMT(1). It's line 14 in Part 1 of Form 6251. Just get rid of it! When people talk about our tax system being too complicated bills like this are why. 1. For that matter we should get rid of the AMT entirely. The fact that we have 2 separate tax systems for individuals is insane. That's a bigger story though.
- rayiner 10y ago
  We have 52 different tax systems for individuals by my count. All the states have have different rules too. Last several years, my wife and I have had to figure out our taxes five different ways on the same income.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    Does Washington D.C. make a 53rd? And though income taxes are managed by the state, I suppose each county collects its own property taxes.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Yup, 53. Or maybe 44 if you don't count the state that don't tax ordinary income.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      Many jurisdictions smaller than states levy income taxes. I think they are usually simpler to figure (often just a single flat rate).
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        My city adds a flat 2% to my state tax, based on my state AGI. Takes 10 seconds or less to calculate. Don't think cities usually go too crazy
- rplst8 10y ago
  > For that matter we should get rid of the AMT entirely. The fact that we have 2 separate tax systems for individuals is insane. It really is. The AMT is the perfect example of when you give someone an inch they take a mile, which is why some people fight so hard against the enactment of new taxes. The AMT was originally enacted to catch a handful (less than 200 I believe) people who were at the time of enactment (1969) very rich and who were paying no taxes. These people had an AGI of over $200,000. That's $1.2 million in today's dollars. The AMT now affects over three million tax payers, mostly because for many years, the exemption was not properly indexed to inflation.
  - MichaelBurge 10y ago
    > The AMT is the perfect example of when you give someone an inch they take a mile, which is why some people fight so hard against the enactment of new taxes. When the politicians were first proposing the constitutional amendment that allowed income taxes, they were throwing numbers like 1% or 2% around. It took only 4 years from the ratification of the 16th amendment for the maximum tax rate to shoot up from 7% to 67%. Now you get an effective 50% tax rate in some states. No wonder office workers spend so much time unproductively checking email and Facebook - that's the half of their time they're giving to the government. Here's a history of the federal tax rate. Notice how it shoots up around World War 2, and takes a very long time to change even after the war ends. So it can't be that the taxes are high simply to fund government services that naturally arose: https://www.scribd.com/doc/190499803/Fed-U-S-Federal-Individual-Income-Tax-Rates-History-1862-2013#fullscreen&from_embed https://www.scribd.com/doc/190499803/Fed-U-S-Federal-Individ... They should just repeal the 16th amendment.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      So you cap income tax at 2%. Congratulations you just tripled property tax and made sales tax 20%. Taxes are like wackamole. You can't just limit 1 tiny piece and expect anything to change. Furthermore you can't just lower the total take unless you want to explain where the cut is coming from. Less school funding? Less roads? Less police? Less Army? More debt?

The bill text is here and is pretty easy to decipher: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5719 https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5719

harryh 10y ago

Why all the goofy eligibility rules? Just get rid of the rule where exercising stock options counts as income under the AMT(1). It's line 14 in Part 1 of Form 6251. Just get rid of it! When people talk about our tax system being too complicated bills like this are why. 1. For that matter we should get rid of the AMT entirely. The fact that we have 2 separate tax systems for individuals is insane. That's a bigger story though.

rayiner 10y ago
We have 52 different tax systems for individuals by my count. All the states have have different rules too. Last several years, my wife and I have had to figure out our taxes five different ways on the same income.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  Does Washington D.C. make a 53rd? And though income taxes are managed by the state, I suppose each county collects its own property taxes.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Yup, 53. Or maybe 44 if you don't count the state that don't tax ordinary income.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Many jurisdictions smaller than states levy income taxes. I think they are usually simpler to figure (often just a single flat rate).
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      My city adds a flat 2% to my state tax, based on my state AGI. Takes 10 seconds or less to calculate. Don't think cities usually go too crazy
rplst8 10y ago
> For that matter we should get rid of the AMT entirely. The fact that we have 2 separate tax systems for individuals is insane. It really is. The AMT is the perfect example of when you give someone an inch they take a mile, which is why some people fight so hard against the enactment of new taxes. The AMT was originally enacted to catch a handful (less than 200 I believe) people who were at the time of enactment (1969) very rich and who were paying no taxes. These people had an AGI of over $200,000. That's $1.2 million in today's dollars. The AMT now affects over three million tax payers, mostly because for many years, the exemption was not properly indexed to inflation.
- MichaelBurge 10y ago
  > The AMT is the perfect example of when you give someone an inch they take a mile, which is why some people fight so hard against the enactment of new taxes. When the politicians were first proposing the constitutional amendment that allowed income taxes, they were throwing numbers like 1% or 2% around. It took only 4 years from the ratification of the 16th amendment for the maximum tax rate to shoot up from 7% to 67%. Now you get an effective 50% tax rate in some states. No wonder office workers spend so much time unproductively checking email and Facebook - that's the half of their time they're giving to the government. Here's a history of the federal tax rate. Notice how it shoots up around World War 2, and takes a very long time to change even after the war ends. So it can't be that the taxes are high simply to fund government services that naturally arose: https://www.scribd.com/doc/190499803/Fed-U-S-Federal-Individual-Income-Tax-Rates-History-1862-2013#fullscreen&from_embed https://www.scribd.com/doc/190499803/Fed-U-S-Federal-Individ... They should just repeal the 16th amendment.
  - brianwawok 10y ago
    So you cap income tax at 2%. Congratulations you just tripled property tax and made sales tax 20%. Taxes are like wackamole. You can't just limit 1 tiny piece and expect anything to change. Furthermore you can't just lower the total take unless you want to explain where the cut is coming from. Less school funding? Less roads? Less police? Less Army? More debt?