No, I’m not peddling a get-rich-quick scheme or giving a compensated pitch for Powerball. This is CSTJ Lewis (“The Spelling That Casts a Spell”) Carluzzo bringing the bad news to Kevin M. Flynn & Jennifer M. Flynn, Docket No. 4085-16S, filed 10/26/17.

Kev & Jen filed timely, but their numbers didn’t include AMIT. That’s the 1969 dragnet supposed to snag the nonpaying richniks of the .1%, but which has morphed into the impenetrable thicket found in Form 6251, which catches the innocent like a certain ram in a thicket in a much more exalted document, but with the same result.

CSTJ Lew is not unsympathetic to Kev’s & Jen’s plight, but the law is the law.

“According to petitioners, they should not be held liable for the portion of the deficiency attributable to the alternative minimum tax because the alternative minimum tax was never intended to apply to the class of taxpayers that describes their financial status. At the hearing Mr. Flynn noted that the alternative minimum tax originally applied to only ‘100’ taxpayers, and over the years more than ‘four million’ taxpayers, including petitioners, became subject to the tax. We’re not sure of the numbers, but appreciate his point. Nevertheless, as he was advised at the hearing, the Court is bound to apply the law as written; petitioners’ complaint about the expanded application of the alternative minimum tax needs to be made to the Congress, not to the Tax Court.” Order, at p. 2. (Citation omitted).

Cheer up, Kev & Jen. Congress, or at least a majority thereof, is hard at work, crafting a major revision of the IRC. Let’s see what happens to Sections 55 and 56.

I’m breathless at the thought.