[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12282-12283]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I have addressed my colleagues many 
times over the past few months to advocate for the American families 
who will pay the alternative minimum tax in 2007. You have all heard me 
say the AMT is an absolutely maddening tax that has insidiously crept 
into the homes of more and more families each year and that it should 
be repealed.
  The AMT was first installed by Congress in 1969. It created a two-
tiered tax system, and that tax system still exists. It essentially 
pieced together a backup tax to ensure that the wealthiest taxpayers 
among us did not evade income taxes altogether through the use of tax 
shelters, loopholes, and deductions--albeit all legal--in the labyrinth 
of the Federal Tax Code.
  The road to tax fairness is paved with good intentions, but this 
one--the AMT--has created a giant-sized pothole that is going to drive 
middle-income taxpayers batty. Unlike the Federal income tax, the AMT 
is not indexed for inflation. That means more and more middle-income 
taxpayers are being slapped with higher tax rates and fewer exemptions, 
credits, and deductions as they fall under the creeping shadow of this 
36-year-old stealth tax.
  On top of the unfair tax burden is its mind-boggling complexity. No 
wonder the AMT is causing major heartburn among more and more families 
across America, especially those who live in high-tax States and have 
three or four children. That is because the AMT causes taxpayers to 
lose standard deductions for State and local tax payments and for 
personal exemptions, even including spouses and children.
  In 2004, about 3 million taxpayers--about 2 percent of all 
taxpayers--were subject to the AMT. But without congressional action, 
up to 23 million taxpayers are, right now, subjected to the AMT during 
this 2007 tax year. In order to prevent this, my friend and chairman of 
the Finance Committee, Max Baucus, and I introduced legislation on the 
first day of the 110th Congress to repeal the individual alternative 
minimum tax beginning in the 2007 tax year.
  My colleagues have also heard me say the AMT has expanded beyond its 
original intent and that it is now a tax that Congress never intended 
to collect--meaning they never intended to collect it from 23 million 
taxpayers who are right now hit with it, who would not have been hit 
with it before, and were never intended to be hit with it.
  Over the past 6 years, Congress has had to enact a series of what I 
call ``patches'' to prevent the AMT from hitting more and more middle-
class Americans--a class of taxpayers never intended to be taxed by it. 
More recently, Congress acted to prevent millions of taxpayers from 
receiving this surprise on their 2006 tax returns by including an 
extension of AMT relief in the Tax Increase Prevention and 
Reconciliation Act of 2005. This provision extended the AMT exemption 
that was initiated in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act 
of 2003 through the year 2006 but at a higher level. The exemption for 
married couples filing jointly was increased from $58,000 to $62,550.
  This week, in fact, marks the 1-year anniversary of the enactment of 
the conference agreement of that last act. That act contained the AMT 
``patch'' for 2006. Nearly 20 million American families who were exempt 
from the AMT before that because of the 2006 patch knew at this time 
last year that Congress was moving to relieve the AMT burden for the 
whole year of 2006. This year, those very families, plus several 
million more, have no such assurance by this Congress.
  Now, to the contrary, the Democratic leadership, now the majority in 
this Congress, doesn't appear to be moving any legislation to address 
the AMT. I would be happy for them to move the Baucus-Grassley repeal 
bill. I know our chairman, Senator Baucus, is like me, concerned about 
the uncertainty caused by the inaction of the leadership.
  The Tax Code has a thicket of problems requiring attention. But this 
one--the AMT--is the thorniest and must be addressed not later, but we 
must address it right now. Some of you may wonder why this is a 
pressing issue. Why can this not wait for an AMT patch at the end of 
the year? This is the reason: It is because 23 million American 
families who are subjected to the AMT in 2007 are dealing now with the 
uncertainty of whether, by hook or by crook, they must come up with the 
money to set aside to pay that tax in April of next year. Many of 
them--just check the instructions from the 2007 estimated tax payment 
forms--don't have the option of waiting until next April because they 
have to file their estimated tax payments quarterly this very year.
  So some of them filing, on April 15, a quarterly report had to figure 
in that alternative minimum tax and set money aside and send it into 
the Treasury because the here and now is here and now for those 23 
million people, or the ones who have to file quarterly returns.
  Those families have already seen that first estimated tax payment 
come and go. Hopefully, they had some refund coming to them from last 
year they were able to offset against a portion of that first payment. 
Of course, we know many of them had to shell out the tax and send the 
Federal Government more of their hard-earned money with that first 
estimated tax payment last month.
  Unfortunately, as unpopular as the AMT is among taxpayers and 
policymakers, it is not easy to simply erase it from the books because 
of the massive amount of revenue that it is set to raise over the next 
decade. That is funny because this is coming from taxpayers never 
intended to be taxed by it in the first place. That is how idiotic this 
can get.
  Until recently, I had hoped the Senate was unified in not wanting to 
collect the AMT for this year or any future year. On March 23, I 
offered an amendment to the 2008 Senate budget resolution that would 
have required Congress to stop spending amounts that are scheduled to 
come into the Federal coffers through the AMT--from middle-income 
taxpayers who were never intended to pay it in the first place. This 
would have put some honesty back into our budgeting process.
  However, not a single colleague on the other side of the aisle voted 
in its favor. Repealing the AMT would put lawmakers on notice to either 
trim Federal spending by a like amount or be transparent about the 
revenue base.
  On the House side, we hear that the Ways and Means Committee is doing 
a lot of talking about the AMT, but they have yet to move to action. We 
are forced to wonder what their plans may be. To do that, we need only 
read what they have been saying and think through the conclusions on 
such proposals.
  It has been reported that some in the other body--the majority party, 
the Democrats--plan to exempt everybody who earns less than $250,000 a 
year from the AMT. It sounds to me as if they might be on the right 
track to full repeal when I hear that. However, we need to follow 
through on what exactly they would do if they insist on providing pay-
fors to cover the lost revenue under the new pay-go rules that are 
being adopted.
  One option is reportedly being floated on the House side which is to 
pay for a $250,000 AMT exclusion by raising the top marginal income tax 
rate. Well, we have found some shocking numbers when we examine that 
issue further. In

[[Page 12283]]

order to exempt folks who earn less than $250,000 from the AMT, if you 
insist on raising taxes to offset it, you would have to raise the top 
marginal tax rate to over 46 percent.
  Now, we have a chart showing the top marginal tax rate. Back in the 
1970s, it was 70 percent, and it gradually went down to a low of 28 
percent. Now it is back at 35 percent, and the red mark would have the 
highest marginal tax rates that we have had since 1980. I will take a 
few minutes to put that regular income tax rate into a historical 
perspective.
  In 1913, when less than 1 percent of the population was subject to 
the income tax, the rate ranged from 1 percent to 7 percent. Rates 
increased significantly during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, up to a top 
marginal tax rate of over 90 percent. The concept of deduction for home 
mortgages, interest, charitable contributions, State and local taxes, 
to name a few, became ingrained in the code during that period of 
stifling high tax rates.
  During the President Kennedy administration, tax rates were reduced 
from 91 percent to 70 percent on the highest income levels, and rates 
fell again during the Reagan administration, first from 70 percent to 
50 percent, and then again the top marginal tax rate was 28 percent by 
the 1986 Tax Act. The top rate now stands at 35 percent.
  It is important to remember that when we look at those historical 
rates, the tax base was narrower prior to 1986 than it is today. Many 
phaseout and phasein concepts took hold in 1986, such as PEP and Pease 
limits. Today, substantially all individual tax incentives are phased 
out and capped, and the result of this base broadening is that if the 
Tax Code were to approach a tax rate similar to the highest marginal 
rate under the more narrow pre-1986 tax base, it would result in 
substantially higher effective tax rates than in the pre-1986 tax 
rates. A marginal regular income tax rate of over 46 percent may 
actually exceed the top effective rate that was in place before 1986 
because of the increase in the tax base.
  Another option that may be working its way through the mill on the 
House side is to pay for that exemption by raising the top alternative 
minimum tax rate. Again, with that option, the tax rate increase is 
staggering. The top AMT rate would go up to nearly 37 percent.
  There is a popular misconception that Congress can sit on its hands 
on tax policy before the next election and that there will be no tax 
increase until 2011. While that view is comforting, it is uninformed. 
Just enacting the alternative minimum tax patch for 2007 will cost over 
$50 billion. That also means that without doing the patch, Americans 
then will pay the $50 billion higher alternative minimum tax, and it is 
coming from middle-income taxpayers who were never intended to be taxed 
when the alternative minimum tax was put in place back in 1969. So we 
must act to prevent such an unfair tax increase.
  The folks who voted against my amendment to take the AMT revenue off 
the table for the tax and spenders have some real explaining to do 
soon. It is possible that they will do nothing on the tax side. The 
result is a $50 billion tax increase on families, middle-income-tax 
families, who are going to be subject to the AMT for the first time and 
are subject to it right now, or they may propose some sort of exemption 
or relief that is paid for by other tax increases and face the music on 
proposing a massive tax increase on the neighbors of those who have 
been paying the AMT, or perhaps they may provide AMT relief but fiddle 
away the money in the budget anyway and increase the deficit.
  I suggest that the tax and spenders consider learning to hum a 
different tune and spend within their means soon or folks may just 
figure out that they planned to raise their tax rates all along. So the 
sad reality is that while it is the new congressional majority that 
needs to face the music, it is likely to be the American taxpayers who 
will end up singing the blues.
  I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Webb). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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