The Senate's Alternative Minimum Tax Tax Relief bill failed as the result of a Republican filibuster. The Republicans required 60 votes to allow the bill to move to debate on the Senate floor and failed 46-48 with 6 Senators not voting. The Republicans must want middle class families to get hit by the AMT. This could affect 466,700 Minnesotans and 23 million Americans. The AMT is a flat tax of about 28% on adjusted gross income over href="75,000. This was originally intended for 155 wealthy people who paid no taxes, but was not indexed for inflation. Head on over to Wikipedia for a complete explanation of the AMT.
Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) has consistently voted against middle class families, but has always voted for tax cuts for the wealthy. Furthermore, some of you may recall that Norm said he was philosophically opposed to using the filibuster in 2005.
Here's what the DSCC says:
"Norm Coleman is always first in line to give tax breaks to special interests and big corporations, but when it comes to tax relief for middle class families, he's nowhere to be found," DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. "When thousands of Minnesotans find themselves subject to the AMT or see their tax returns delayed next year, they'll know exactly who to blame – Norm Coleman. By voting against this important tax relief for Minnesota families, Coleman showed today that his priorities are clearly in the wrong place."
(DSCC press release)
Here's some analysis of the AMT:
Recent tax policy under the Bush Administration has exacerbated the problem of the AMT. The 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts were designed to increase the amount of taxes paid through the AMT. The Tax Policy Center, which has written extensively about AMT, notes that tax cuts enacted between 2001 and 2006 have "more than doubled the projected share of taxpayers who will face the AMT in 2010, from 16.0 percent to 33.6 percent."
In fact, the degree to which Bush and his tax-cut supporters relied on the stealth tax to make his tax cuts appear more affordable is betrayed by the fact that if current tax law is extended beyond its 2010 sunset date, it will cost the Treasury more to repeal the AMT than it would to repeal the regular income tax.
(OMB Watch)
It will be interesting to find out why Norm and his fellow tax cutters oppose cutting this tax which will so obviously benefit so many middle-class Minnesotans and Americans.