Only a liberal would see taking a $33 million Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) hit as a benefit.
Commenting this morning on the release of Donald Trump’s 2005 tax return, CNN’s Chris Cuomo described the Alternative Minimum Tax [AMT] he paid as a “benefit” to Trump. It was just the opposite. The AMT Alternative Minimum Tax is designed to prevent people with large incomes from using deductions to reduce their tax liability beyond a certain amount. No matter how little a taxpayer would normally pay, the AMT imposes a higher minimum.
In Trump’s case, but for the AMT, he would have paid only about $5 million in taxes on income of about $150 million. But because of the AMT, he paid about $38 million. So the AMT hurt Trump to the tune of about $33 million. But describing the two pages of the return that were released, Cuomo said “they really just show you what he paid in taxes, what he could have paid if he didn’t have the benefit of the alternative minimum tax.” Benefit? Really? Fake news at its worst.