The New Tax Trap

Watch out: the alternative minimum tax is sneaking up on you. Here's why

Tax reform is on the national agenda again. Yet no one is doing anything about the most dreaded levy of them all: the alternative minimum tax. You have probably heard about the AMT and may have to pay it soon enough if you aren't already doing so. Join the club. Here's a primer on the most reviled tax since the Boston Tea Party.

*WHAT IS THE AMT?

It is a parallel tax code, launched more than four decades ago. Outraged that 155 wealthy families had used loopholes to avoid paying any federal income tax in 1967, Congress in 1969 enacted the...

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