House Democrats looking to spare millions of middle-class families from the expensive bite of the alternative minimum tax are considering adding a surcharge of 4 percent or more to the tax bills of the nation's wealthiest households.Under one version of the proposal, about 1 million families would be hit with a 4.3 percent surtax on income over $500,000, which would raise enough money to permit Congress to abolish the alternative minimum tax for millions of households earning less than $250,000 a year, according to Democratic aides and others familiar with the plan.
Rep. Richard E. Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the House subcommittee with primary responsibility for the AMT, said that option would also lower AMT bills for families making $250,000 to $500,000. And it would pay for reductions under the regular income tax for married couples, children and the working poor.
All told, the proposal would lower taxes for as many as 90 million households, and Neal said it has broad support among House leaders and Democrats on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee. "Everybody's on board," he said.
Neal has yet to release details of the plan, however, and others inside and outside the committee say major pieces of it are still in flux. Some Democrats say Neal's plan stretches the definition of the middle class too far, providing AMT relief to too many wealthy households. They argue that the cutoff for families to be spared from the AMT should be lower, at $200,000, $150,000 or even $75,000.
"There is consensus to make sure that we have some responsible tax policy that will also treat taxpayers fairly. No one ever expected to be caught in the AMT making 75 grand," said Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Calif.), a Ways and Means Committee member whose Los Angeles district is populated by working poor. "We're trying to come up with a fix that does right by the great majority of Americans who fall into the middle class."
The debate has focused attention on a different surtax proposed by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution. That plan would eliminate the AMT and replace it with a 4 percent surcharge on income over $200,000 for families and $100,000 for singles, cutting taxes for 22 million households and raising them for more than 3 million.
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