Time for this tax hit on the 'rich' to be put aside for the good of everyone

financialpost.com:

The Alternative Minimum Tax is an example of silly taxation policy creating complexity and it needs to be abolished — here’s why.

The AMT was implemented in 1986 as an alternative and mandatory way to calculate your personal tax liability. It was first proposed in the 1985 federal budget in response to the perception that some high-income earners were taking advantage of legitimate deductions and tax credits that were available to them, and so they were not paying a sufficient level of tax. It was most certainly influenced by the fact that the United States had a similar AMT system.

Without getting into the nitty-gritty of the mechanics, the basic concept is that you calculate your personal tax liability under two ways: the regular way and the AMT way, which adjusts the regular method by adding back certain deductions and tax credits, provides for a basic exemption and then applies an AMT tax rate.

To the extent the resulting liability is higher under the AMT way than the regular way, you’ll end up paying the AMT tax liability. The difference between the regular tax payable and the AMT payable — which is the AMT — is refundable over a maximum seven-year period to the extent that the AMT is not payable in any of those subsequent years.

Yep, you read that right. The AMT is a refundable tax. In my experience, it is a very rare situation when an individual has to permanently pay AMT. In other words, if an individual pays AMT, it is almost certainly later refunded within the seven-year maximum timeframe. While I cannot find statistics to support my assertion, my experience does.

The AMT has not been materially amended since its introduction into tax law until recently. In a purely political stunt, the Liberal Party during the