Trump wants to abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax

[Kaleva]

Thanks to Rachel, we now know why.

"Donald Trump incurred most of his tax liability in 2005 from the Alternative Minimum Tax, a feature of the tax code that he has called to eliminate, according to a portion of his tax return for that year reported Tuesday night.

In 2005, Trump earned $150 million and paid $38 million in federal income taxes, for an effective income tax rate of just above 25 percent, the White House said Tuesday night in anticipation of the president's returns being disclosed by the media."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-hit-in-2005-by-alternative-minimum-tax-that-he-would-eliminate/article/2617392

Kudos to Rachel for showing that Trump is just looking out for himself.

[oberliner]

1. So does Bernie Sanders

Among others.

[Kaleva]

2. It's interesting you fail to mention a key point

Bernie wants to replace the AMT with much higher tax brackets for the well to do and he also wants to apply Social Security payroll taxes on individual incomes over $250,000.

Trump proposes no such thing.

[oberliner]

3. Your post only mentioned the AMT

Pretty much every Republican (and some non-Republicans) wants to get rid of it.

[Kaleva]

4. You still failed to mention that with Bernies plan, Trump would have paid more in taxes.

It's a fact, for which you must agree, that Bernie wants to replace the AMT with much higher tax brackets while Trump wants to eliminate the AMT but wants the higher end tax brackets reduced.

[oberliner]

7. Of course - thank you for mentioning that again

My point is that the desire to abolish the AMT is not unique to Trump.

Almost every Republican wants to abolish it, for instance.

Bernie wants to abolish it and raise taxes on higher brackets.

[Worktodo]

5. The AMT is "Flat Tax"

The original purpose of the AMT was to catch people who earned millions of dollars but ended up paying no tax.. but there were no built in adjustments to inflation. So eventually everyone would be subject to AMT. Congress passed an emergency AMT fix a few years ago to raise the thresholds. It was funny during the hype for the Flat Tax (which was all the rage a decade ago) that Flat Taxers never mentioned the AMT, which was certainly a Flat Tax and wildly unpopular. Implementing a flat tax in the US would be very simple-- lower the rate and threshold for the AMT.

[secondwind]

6. I thought he was going to push for a flat tax... so much happening so fast, it's hard to keep up!