AMT PAID BY MILLIONS OF TAXPAYERS

In a recent income statistics bulletin, the IRS reported that the alternative minimum tax (AMT) affected a record 4.25 million tax returns and collected $30.48 billion in taxes during tax year 2011. The AMT was created years ago to ensure that high-income taxpayers could not escape all taxes through the use of deductions and credits. The recent report indicated that more than half of the $30 billion of AMT collected in 2011 was from individuals earning between $200,000 and $500,000. The number of taxpayers hit by the AMT has more than tripled since 2001.