[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6127]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  EXTENSION OF ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX

  (Mrs. KELLY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. KELLY. Madam Speaker, millions of Americans filed their income 
tax returns last week.
  The tax relief measures we have passed in Congress during the past 5 
years have helped drive down the Federal tax bill of all Americans, but 
more work needs to be done to enable our constituents to keep more of 
the money they earn, rather than sending it here to Washington in 
taxes.
  This year, we have got to get the alternative minimum tax off the 
backs of small business and the middle-class families once and for all.
  It was a tax increase in 1993 that failed to adjust the AMT exemption 
amounts for inflation. That negligence left us with a stealth tax that 
is looming at the doorstep of middle-class families throughout New York 
and across our country.
  We protected those middle-class families by increasing the AMT 
exemption amounts in tax relief we enacted during the past few years, 
but if middle-class exemptions are not extended or made permanent this 
year, the number of New Yorkers forced to pay the AMT will more than 
quadruple to 1.6 million next year, and this is just New York.
  Let us not repeat the mistake Congress made in 1993. Let us stop the 
alternative minimum tax on the middle class and on America's small 
businesses. Let us commit ourselves to lowering taxes, not raising 
them.

                          ____________________