Boehner: Speaker & Majority Leader Should Stop Playing Politics, Schedule Senate-Passed AMT Fix Immediately
Press Release
Boehner: Speaker & Majority Leader Should Stop Playing Politics, Schedule Senate-Passed AMT Fix Immediately
House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today blasted the Democratic Majority for the ongoing delay in protecting 23 million taxpayers from unnecessarily paying the alternative minimum tax (AMT) next year. In spite of last week's Senate vote of 88-5 on a clean AMT fix, House Democratic leaders today forced a vote on a bill that would permanently raise taxes in order to "pay for" protections for 23 million Americans from a tax they were never meant to pay in the first place. Boehner issued the following statement:
"This bill has no chance of becoming law, and everyone knows it. Yet the Majority continues to waste time when 23 million Americans are in danger of paying the alternative minimum tax for the first time in history. This inaction will result in massive delays in tax refunds for 50 million Americans, and every day Democratic leaders wait to bring up a real AMT fix that can pass the Senate and be signed into law will only extend these delays even further.
"The fact that the Majority has not yet acted to prevent a massive tax hike on middle-class families who never before had to pay the AMT is one of the greatest disappointments of a very disappointing 110th Congress. If the Majority waits any longer, this fiasco will be remembered as one of the most notorious examples of irresponsibility in congressional history. Time has nearly run out. Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer should stop playing politics and bring the Senate-passed AMT fix to the floor immediately."
NOTE: The alternative minimum tax was established in the 1960s to ensure the nation's wealthiest earners paid an income tax. Because the thresholds of the tax were not indexed to inflation, however, more taxpayers - including millions of middle class earners - risk paying the tax than originally intended. On October 23, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson confirmed that continued delays in enacting an AMT patch could cause months-long delays of up to $75 billion in tax refunds for 50 million taxpayers (25 million that are subject to the AMT without a patch and 25 million more who use other deductions). Republican-led Congresses routinely enacted an AMT patch each year, without unnecessarily inflicting such pain on taxpayers.
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