Alternative Minimum Tax Patch
Data File:
Date:
February 17, 2009
Who:
IRS
Policy Area:
Fiscal Policy
Economic Target:
Consumers
Action Type:
Tax Break
Maximum Amount:
$85.00 billion
Amount Spent:
$80.00 billion
Deficit Impact:
$70.00 billion The alternative minimum tax provision in the federal tax code, while originally added to prevent a small group of high-income earners from owing little or no taxes through the taking of many deductions, has in recent years come to affect upper-middle-income earners because it lacks inflation indexing. This alternative minimum tax "patch," which applies to 2009 only, raises the level of income that is exempt from the alternative minimum tax.
Provisions are part of the $787 billion "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009," a set of policies designed to mitigate the effects of the economic crisis. The act contains significant spending for direct worker assistance, infrastructure, healthcare, education, aid to states, and other areas, and tax breaks for individuals and corporations.
| AMT Patch (in millions of dollars) |
||||||||||||
| Year |
2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2009-2019 |
| Totals | 2,054 | 82,720 | -15,015 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 69,759 |
Notes:
Positive numbers in table indicate spending, negative numbers indicate savings or revenue. Maximum amount is the peak cumulative cost of a provision over the period 2009-2019, though the provision may eventually cost less by 2019. In the case of the Alternative Minimum Tax Patch, the peak cumulative cost would occur in 2010, creating a maximum cost of approximately $85 billion. Deficit impact is the final cost of a provision from 2009-2019. Amount spent reflects CRFB calculated continuations of disbursal rates since last reported on Recovery.gov in December 2010 and extrapolated to the present by CRFB staff.