View Research by Author - Andrew B. Lyon

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Minimum taxes are intended to increase tax payments from taxpayers who, under the rules of the regular tax system, are believed to pay too little tax relative to a more standard measure of ther income. The U.S. federal income tax has both a personal and a corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT). The complex corporate tax is designed to increase the income tax on businesses by adjusting for a wide range of preferences awarded to corporations under the standard system. This article details the AMT calculation, revenues, and purpose.

[© Brookings Institution] The corporate alternative minimum tax (AMT) was hailed in the Tax Reform Act of 1986 as instrumental to ensuring that tax loopholes would not permit corporations to avoid paying their fair share of tax liability. In 1995, less than ten years later, repeal of the AMT was pledged as part of the Republican Party's "Contract with America" and passed by the House of Representatives. Opponents of the AMT object that it penalizes new investment by firms and prevents the use of legitimate deductions. Its defenders tout the ability of the AMT to address public perceptions of unfairness in the tax system.

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