December 20, 2007

Reid, Pelosi Urge Bush To Ensure That Taxpayers Receive AMT Relief In Timely Fashion

Washington, DC—Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Speaker Nancy Pelosi today sent the following letter to the President, urging him to ensure that taxpayers impacted by changes to the Alternative Minimum Tax receive their refunds in a timely fashion.  The text of the letter is below:  

December 20, 2007

President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

As you know, the Democratic Congress acted this week to protect 23 million middle class taxpayers from being affected by the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which was originally intended to prevent the wealthiest Americans from dodging all tax liability.  This legislation was a critical part of our efforts to cut taxes for the middle class and make the tax code fairer for working families.  Without it, hardworking American families would have been hit with an average tax increase of nearly $2,000.

On October 30, 2007, the bipartisan leadership of the Congressional tax committees wrote to Acting Internal Revenue Service Direction Linda E. Stiff to notify her that Congress would soon act on our AMT legislation.  This letter also provided specific details about this legislation so the IRS could prepare to process 2007 returns.

In their letter, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Republican Charles Grassley, House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, and House Ways and Means Ranking Member Jim McCrery wrote, "[w]e urge the Internal Revenue Service to take all steps necessary to plan for changes that would be made by this legislation." 

Today, at your press conference in which you acknowledged the many accomplishments of the 110th Congress, you seemed to indicate that the IRS has not prepared for the changes in tax law that that the bipartisan leadership of the Congressional tax committees made clear would occur before the end of this year.  We are extremely concerned that this failure to act will delay the processing of 2007 tax returns and the issuing of refund checks to tax filers who would benefit from our AMT relief legislation.

You may not be aware that many of the taxpayers who would have been impacted by the AMT this year had the Congress not acted are hard-working Americans, many of whom cannot afford any delay in their refunds, particularly given today’s economy.

We hope your Administration adequately preparing for this needed change in tax law.  For the sake of the 23 million families who will benefit from AMT tax relief, we urge you to make every effort to ensure that impacted taxpayers receive their refund in a timely manner.

Sincerely,

Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House

Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader

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