Business in Brief

Author: Washington Post

Published: September 19, 2002

The alternative minimum tax, enacted to prevent the wealthy from escaping income taxes, will affect 36 million increasingly middle-class taxpayers by 2010, largely because it is not indexed for inflation, private researchers reported. "It is no exaggeration to say it is on the verge of dominating our income tax system and will create major problems for the economy," said Leonard Burman, co-director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The Internal Revenue Service's taxpayer advocate and the Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides tax-bill estimates for Congress, have made similar projections.