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Campaign News
WASHINGTON – U.S. Congresswoman Sue Kelly is pushing for reform of the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) this year, and she took to the House floor to make her case for a legislative solution to the problem that threatens middle-class families and small businesses throughout the Hudson Valley. The AMT was enacted in 1969 to stop a few hundred taxpayers with high incomes from utilizing so many tax credits that they avoided paying federal taxes altogether. But when a 1993 federal tax increase failed to adjust AMT exemption amounts for inflation, what was intended to be a tax on high-income taxpayers became a tax that now punishes the middle class. Hudson Valley families that use federal deductions for education-related expenses, home mortgage interest, and state and local taxes paid are increasingly being afflicted by the AMT. Small business owners also are particularly affected. “This year, we must get the Alternative Minimum Tax off the backs of small businesses and middle-class families once-and-for-all,” Kelly said yesterday while addressing Democrats and Republicans on the House floor. “It was a tax increase in 1993 that failed to adjust 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.” Kelly added, “We protected those middle-class families by increasing AMT exemption amounts in tax relief bills that we enacted in Congress during the past few years. But if middle-class AMT exemptions aren’t 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.” Without a Congressional fix before the end of this year, the increased AMT exemption amounts passed in recent tax relief legislation would expire and revert back to previous levels. Local residents whose incomes fall between $33,750 and $40,250 (single filers) and $45,000 and $58,000 (joint filers) would no longer be exempted from the AMT on their federal income tax returns next year. They could be forced to pay as much as $4,000 in new federal taxes. Anticipating this problem, Kelly co-introduced legislation (H.R. 4096) last year to extend middle-class exemptions from the AMT, and that bill passed the House on December 7. However, the legislation has stalled in the Senate. Kelly has similarly co-sponsored previous Congressional efforts to increase AMT exemption amounts to better shield middle-class taxpayers. “More work still needs to be done to enable our constituents to keep more of the money they earn rather than sending it to Washington in taxes,” Kelly urged other House members in her floor speech. “Let’s not repeat the mistake Congress made in 1993. Let’s stop the Alternative Minimum Tax on the middle class and on America’s small businesses. Let’s commit ourselves to further lowering taxes, not raising them.” |
LINKS TO KEY WASHINGTON NEWS SOURCES
PO Box 599 Katonah, NY 10536 sue@suekellyforcongress.com