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Study Says Obscure Minimum Tax Will Affect 36 Million by 2010
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An obscure tax originally enacted to prevent the wealthy from escaping income taxes entirely will grow sharply until it affects 36 million increasingly middle-class taxpayers by 2010, private researchers reported Wednesday.
''It is no exaggeration to say it is on the verge of dominating our income tax system and will create major problems for the economy,'' said Leonard Burman, co-director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The center is a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution think tanks.
The alternative minimum tax is a highly complicated parallel to the regular income tax system -- a backstop -- designed in 1969 to ensure 155 wealthy people paid some tax, the study found. That number is projected to grow to about 2.6 million this year and 36 million by 2010.
The study is the latest to project problems for a large segment of taxpayers during this decade. The Internal Revenue Service's taxpayer advocate and the Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides tax bill estimates for Congress, have made similar projections. |
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