Taxing the rich - what is the cutoff?

[onlydarksets]

Originally Posted by Schneed10

As for the bolded part, I added it as income because it's a tax return, money they get back from the government every year. If not for AMT, this couple would get back more than $35K each year in tax returns. With AMT, they only get back $21K.

In reality, nobody gets a tax return this big because people claim more than 0 on their W-2 at work, hence less tax is taken out from their paycheck. But that's a zero-sum affect in this example. If this couple were doing that, their 61K income tax liability would be reduced by the same amount in which their tax return went down.

I'll be the first to admit that I am awful with taxes, but I'm trying to understand the chart, because I think it's a useful framework for this discussion. Are you saying that the total federal income tax liability for a couple making $250k is about $40k? I'm seeing a $61k federal tax expense and a $21k federal tax return.