Don't you love hearing rich SOBs whining about paying AMT?

I was listening to Boortz yesterday, and he had some caller whining and crying about having had to pay the AMT for the last five years. He's complaining that the AMT wipes out most of his deductions, blah, blah, blah. What really floored me was when he actually said that he is barely scraping by when he's making over a hundred grand per year. FUCK YOU. If you're making that much money, you're damned right you should be paying your fair share to society, instead of trying to find ways to avoid it. Scraping by, my ass. I would venture to guess that this particular person lives in a very nice house, probably has at least two or three vehicles, large screen TV, well-stocked refrigerator, has children in private school, etc. If he's "scraping by", it's his own damned fault. There are plenty of us out here who are truly scraping by, struggling to put food on our tables and pay our bills. There are even more of us who, if it weren't for charity groups, probably wouldn't be eating at all!

Then this guy even went so far as to complain that the government is taking HIS money and giving it to THOSE people in New Orleans. :nopity:

It was designed to capture really rich people who were creatively using tax breaks to avoid paying , not people who make $100k (which is not that much, if you have two professional or middle-management incomes) and itemize deductions. Apparently, it wasn't indexed to inflation, so more and more people are having to mess with it.

I think people mind paying only slightly more than they mind having to do the freakin' math; it's IMPOSSIBLE to figure out. I haven't had to pay it, but I've tried deciphering it a couple times in my tax software and it completely baffled me.

I worked for a company that was paying me just shy of 100k but I had to spend upwards of 30 hours a week driving and they didn't reimburse for gas, but since it was a deduction and I was just a kid at 23 I thought that the fact that I really made about 32k less a year (sometimes up to 2k a month) would all work out in the end when I did my taxes. Boy was I wrong.

In retrospect I was doing the wrong thing anyway and if I met the me of then today I would have no sympathy for the corporate goon.
The good news is that I learned some valuable lessons about myself and I am proud to say since leaving the company I have only worked for non-profits.

the AMT, when combined with Bush's tax cuts, transfers more of the tax burden from the truly rich to their servants in the upper middle class.

Plus, the federal government spends an enormous amount of money on basically . . . shit. Close to half goes to "defense" and "debt interest." It's quite a racket.

oh wait we are.

only more comfortably.

it sucks but ONLY because I see what the government does with my money. I would prefer to put the $$ in my son's college fund or maybe pay down the mortgage. I am very fortunate to earn enough to pay this, but the previous posters are right, this was designed to make the truly rich pay their fair share. I am NOT truly rich (in money anyway) - just in health and family - you know, the important stuff

when I was working (certainly never $100,00).

One very real problem with the AMT is that it can kick in when you take money out of tax deferred accounts. You start thinking of the money that you have been assiduously saving for your old age as your own money. Then, when you need to use that money, it gets hit by up to 35% in income taxes, and, if you take out too much in one year, you start losing your garden variety (home mtg, local taxes, etc.) deductions. I can't believe that there aren't more average people screaming about this.

that the folks who the AMT was aimed to hit - don't get hit - that is the much more rich. They never scream - but I am not part of the really wealthy - and the intent was to make sure that those folks pay their fair share - why am I paying but they still get to skate?

It is odd - that somehow it hits the 'comfortable' but allows the really rich for whom the tax was originally designed are reportedly not effected. And that those on the right complaining don't mention that - but instead scapegoat the truely disadvantaged instead.

are in that hoity-toity bracket, those juicy benefits will be all theirs too..

As soon as they pick the right numbers, they will be rich too :)

because they liquidated assets. There is something wrong with that. Gains should all be taxed the same. Some should not be subjected to greater levels of taxation under AMT.

I think this guy saying he was barely scraping by, and complaining about "those" people in New Orleans getting government help, really pissed me off.

Surely, "those" people could go there, and if they would rather die than do so, well, so be it...
(badly paraphrasing Charles Dickens) :sarcasm: :yoiks: