Alternative Minimum Tax Essay

While most taxpayers agree that tax reform is necessary for our country the problem they encounter is the difficulty they experience when trying to understand all the political terms used when discussing tax reform. This paper is an attempt to help the taxpayers of our country to better understand the political terminology and gain knowledge about some of the proposals that have been explored.

Hoffman, W., Maloney, D., Raabe, W., & Young, J. (2013). Federal Taxation Comprehensive Volume. (36 ed.). Ohio: South-W

Parents may claim a child tax credit for a dependent child who is 22 years of age at the end of the year if the child is a full-time student.

If your parents don 't claim you as a dependent, then you put either $9,500.00, or 19,000.00 depending on whether you are married or single, onto line 5.

A. Filing Status:  There are two choices of filing status available to this taxpayer couple, married filing separately and married filing jointly. For this taxpayer couple the recommended filing status is married filing jointly. The tax rates would be higher if they filed separately. Additionally, some deductions (e.g. tuition and student loan interest), credits (e.g. Earned Income Credit) and exclusions would not be allowed if they filed separately. Since they sold a personal residence during this tax year, they will be able to exclude up to $500,000 profit from the sales as joint filers rather than only up to $250,000 if filing separately. There will be 2 qualified personal exemptions and 3 exemptions for the 3

including the Earned Income Tax Credit ( EITC) and the Child Tax Credit ( CTC) that directly

In the United States today there are millions of corporations in many different industries. All of them must abide by the current taxation rules and regulations that have been set by IRS and congress. The Internal Revenue Code, which was originally founded in 1939, set the foundation for the codification that we have in place today. The code arranged all Federal Tax provisions in a logical order and placed them in a separate part of the federal status. Over the years, congress has updated and amended the tax code in 1954, in 1986 Tax Reform Act, and is constantly updating the code due to its importance in assessing judicial and administrative decisions. The

The alternative minimum tax (AMT) was created to prevent high income level individuals from using deductions and credits to avoid paying federal income taxes (Tritz, 2015). Due to inflation AMT now spreads to include more individuals beyond the highest-income taxpayers and straying from its original objective. Consequently, AMT has affected the economy by over-complicating the already complex tax code, creating an additional obligation for taxpayers, and burdening more taxpayers than its original intention. This relates to our course content, which includes the calculation of AMT, the differences between AMT and TMT, the differences between AMT and the regular tax rate, and disallowance rules under AMT.

The Armey-Shelby flat tax proposal will scraps the entire income tax code and replaces it with a flat-rate income tax that treats all Americans the same. This plan would simplify the tax code, promote economic opportunity, and restore fairness and integrity to the tax system. The flat rate would be phased-in over a three-year period, with a 19 percent rate for the first two years and a 17 percent rate for subsequent years.

The United States tax system is in complete disarray. Republicans and Democrats agree that the current tax code is complex, unfair, and costly. The income tax system is so complex; the IRS publishes 480 tax forms and 280 forms to explain the 480 forms (Armey 1). The main reason the tax system is so complex is because of the special preferences such as deductions and tax credits. Complexity in the current tax system forces Americans to spend 5.4 billion hours complying with the tax code, which is more time than it takes to manufacture every car, truck and van produced in the United States (Armey 1). Time is not the only thing that is lost with the current tax system; Americans also lose

The businesses among the process of production, collect the taxes from the products they sold and it is then given to the government. Therefore, it is a general consumption tax because the tax ultimately falls on the final consumer. VAT is also referred as an indirect tax because it is collected by the government from the seller (the businesses) and not the final consumer who pays the tax. This process of adding a tax in each stage of production differentiates itself from a sales tax (Anastakis, N.D.). Dimitry Anastakis, demonstrated this difference where he gives the following example, “if a sales tax of 10 percent is applied to a desk worth $1,000, then the end customer buying the desk from a desk retailer would pay $100 in sales tax and $1,000 to the desk retailer” (N.D.). Therefore, all others involved in each step of production of the desk would pay no tax only the consumer. Further, Anastakis states, “If a VAT of 10 percent is applied to the same desk, the end customer will pay $100 in VAT. If the desk builder has purchased wood and supplies for the desk totaling $400, he/she is thus assessing $600 of value that he/she has added in creating the desk. The desk builder would pay the 10 percent VAT of $40 on the supplies. When he/she remits payment of the VAT to the government, he/ she will remit the total VAT assessed on the end value of the desk ($100) minus what he/she has already paid ($40), to total $60 based on the added value” (N.D.).

The United States is in a recession; it has been facing some of the worse economic times since the Great Depression in the 1930’s. One option to fix the economy is to change the corporate tax rate. To lower it or to raise it, that is the question economists have been speculating. America's high corporate tax rate and worldwide system of taxation discourages U.S. companies from sending their foreign-source revenue home, which makes U.S. companies defenseless to foreign acquisition from the international opponents (Camp). Corporations and United States citizens have been fighting for a tax reform, which would hopefully help the American economy; either by lowering the corporate tax, or by raising the tax.

A tax rebate per person of $120 and $80 for under eighteen and over sixty-five shifts the IS curve to the right from IS1 to IS2 which increases income from Y1 to Y2 and raises consumption in the goods market. This causes a rise in demand for money (Md)

It has been long pending discussion to abolish various types of indirect taxes and implement a single taxation system. This system is called as GST. The main expectation from this system is to terminate all indirect taxes and only GST would be levied both on goods and services.

Taxation means the government impose charges on the citizen and corporate entities in order to finance their expenditure. Taxation is use to encourage or discourage certain economic decision such as reduction in taxable personal income by the amount paid as interest on home mortgage loans results in greater construction activity and generates more jobs.