Trapped in a shadow tax system. The Alternative Minimum Tax operates as a parallel tax system that requires Americans to calculate their tax burden under two separate structures. Under the AMT, taxpayers with many children, a second mortgage, high state taxes, or who otherwise claim various tax benefits they thought the tax code was intended to encourage may be trapped into recalculating their taxes under a different set of rules and paying much higher taxes.

Missing the intended target. The AMT was originally inspired by 1969 testimony of the then-Treasury secretary to the Joint Economic Committee that 155 affluent individuals paid no income tax, Sadly, instead of targeting the ultra-wealthy the AMT hit almost 4.3 million taxpayers during the 2015 tax filing season, including thousands of Americans with incomes of less than $15,000. Millions more had to use complicated calculations to determine whether AMT might apply. An estimated 4.7 million taxpayers will owe AMT during the current tax filing season.