alternative minimum tax

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is warning that if $607 billion in tax increases and spending cuts all hit as scheduled, the U.S. will likely go into recession in 2013. It's a "fiscal cliff" we don't have to jump off.

Like it or not, the rules for filing your taxes change every year. Even experts have to relearn the ropes annually, with law changes, new forms, and other hurdles posing a constant challenge. Here's a gallery of some of the more important changes hitting taxpayers this year.

Thanks to yet another lapse by Congress, more than 20 million taxpayers may pay a tax in 2012 that was originally designed to hit only the ultra-rich. It may not happen -- but you should plan ahead for it in case it does.

Lawmakers have gotten in the habit of waiting until the last minute to extend many tax breaks, but last year, they ran out of time. Now, unless Congress acts soon, millions of Americans are face changes that could leave them sending thousands of dollars a year more to the IRS.

The good news for taxpayers this year is that Congress finally got around to patching the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) for 2010. With just a couple of weeks left in the year, Congress increased the exemption for the AMT as part of the new tax deal signed into law on Dec. 17, 2010. Under the new...

The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was introduced in 1969 as a way to ensure that extremely high-income taxpayers paid their fair share. For the 1967 tax year, just before the tax was first enacted, 155 taxpayers with incomes of more than $200,000 (indexed for inflation, that's roughly $1.3 million...

Taxpayers love deductions and credits -- and why not? The number of deductions and credits in the Tax Code allows you to reduce your taxable income and tax due. But what if you could deduct everything? What if your super pricey home meant your home mortgage interest deduction was sky high? Or if...

One of the many special provisions included in the bailout bill passed by U.S. lawmakers last week was a "fix" for 2008 for the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT). This tax dates back to 1970, when a small number of high-income taxpayers were paying little to no tax because of all the deductions they...

It seems that many of our congresscritters took advantage of the public outcry for a quick passage to pack a bunch of pork into the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. It seems ridiculous, but members of Congress took advantage of a bill meant to save the economy to fund questionable...

If you're one of the millions affected by the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) temporary fix approved by the House of Representatives last week, you may have to wait to get your refund.The fix is good for taxpayers, but bad for the Internal Revenue Service. Any form affected by the change won't be...