The Whitlock Company, CPAs and Consultants, Springfield Missouri

You may have heard people who talk about money or politics for a living mention something about the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT, as it is often called. Mention of the AMT has become more frequent of late because millions more taxpayers will be forced to calculate and pay this tax in the next few years. Dubbed “the stealth tax,” the AMT has been blindsiding many “ordinary” taxpayers who count on taking what have become “ordinary” deductions. The AMT has been made even more dangerous by the labyrinth of rules for calculating the tax, which are complicated enough to give seasoned tax professionals fits. There are two questions that taxpayers want answered when it comes to the AMT: “What is it?” and “What can I do to avoid it?”

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Tax Act of 2009 (ARRTA) is loaded with various tax incentives for individuals for 2009 and 2010. Among the individual tax breaks in the new law are incentives for homeownership, help for the unemployed and employed, as well as education assistance and tax breaks for taxpayers with children. This article provides an overview of the major individual tax incentives provided by the ARRTA.

With its new and expanded tax benefits for individuals, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 seeks to get more money into the pockets of American consumers. College students and their families, homebuyers, and buyers of new cars are among the potential beneficiaries, but so too are low-income Americans, with the act’s continuation and expansion of such tax breaks as a higher eligibility limit for the earned income tax credit.