Alternative Minimum Tax
The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is an income tax imposed by the United States federal government on individuals, corporations, estates, and trusts. AMT is imposed at a nearly flat rate on an adjusted amount of taxable income above a certain threshold (also known as exemption). This exemption is substantially higher than the exemption from regular income tax.
Regular taxable income is adjusted for certain items computed differently for AMT, such as depreciation and medical expenses. No deduction is allowed for state taxes or miscellaneous itemized deductions in computing AMT income. Taxpayers with incomes above the exemption whose regular Federal income tax is below the amount of AMT must pay the higher AMT amount.
A predecessor Minimum Tax, enacted in 1969, imposed an additional tax on certain tax benefits for certain taxpayers. The present AMT was enacted in 1982 and limits tax benefits from a variety of deductions. The thresholds at which AMT begins to apply are not automatically adjusted for inflation, as are regular tax thresholds, but Congress has made frequent legislative adjustments.
Read more about Alternative Minimum Tax: AMT Basics, History, AMT Details, Growth of The AMT, Opinions About AMT, Further Reading, Software
Famous quotes containing the words alternative, minimum and/or tax:
“No alternative to the
one-man path.”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.”
—H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)
“I find nothing healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society. I do not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a destructive tax in my conformity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)