Note to Congress: AMT Temporary Patch Expires Soon

The Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire blog offers a reminder about Alternative Minimum Tax fun ahead:

Among the many unfinished items on Congress’s agenda this year is a handful of tax policy issues including a short-term fix for the Alternative Minimum Tax, whether or not Congress will pass an additional economic stimulus package, and tax deductions for college tuition and state sales tax, among other items.

All three could pose a headache for the Internal Revenue Service if Congress doesn’t decide how to act before Election Day, preferably by October, IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman said in a Wall Street Journal interview today.

You may recall that Congress’s indecisiveness over AMT lead to a bit of chaos this past winter.  We started off early tax season with thousands of middle-class taxpayers wondering if they were going to be hit with AMT.  Then a one-year reprieve was granted, and tax-processing was delayed while new forms could be generated and IRS computers reprogrammed.

I’ll be shocked if Congress acts in a timely matter on this subject.  However, it sounds like something that might be tackled during the lame-duck session after the elections.