AMT reform is a thorny issue, discussed at length here, which will confront Congress in 2007. Now comes A Progressive Solution to the AMT Problem from Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ). The key elements of their four-year, revenue-neutral plan:

• extend the 2006 AMT exemptions through 2010, indexed for inflation
• remove the 15 percent tax rate on capital gains and dividends, treating from capital gains them the same as other income, but only for AMT purposes

Bush says he's for a minimum wage increase...that comes with tax and regulatory breaks for business. See the story here. President Bush endorsed one of the Democrats' top priorities for the new Congress, a $2.10-an-hour minimum wage increase _ and on a faster timetable than they have proposed. But his support comes with a catch. Bush said at a Wednesday news conference that any pay hike should be accompanied by tax and regulatory relief for small businesses, potentially a tough sell for Democrats, who are about to reassume control of the House and Senate.

The Wall Street Journal today offers a must-read page-one article on the fork in the road ahead for Democrats regarding the Party's identity on economic issues. Appearing arrayed against each other are the Clintonian, "establishment," free-trading internationalists led by Robert Rubin and the populists and organized labor challengers focused on economic -- especially job, health care, and retirement -- security.

Syracuse University's TRAC has finally obtained data from the IRS on auditing trends regarding large corporations. Unsurprisingly, the released data shows that the annual audit rate for large corporations has declined this last year. IRS audited 35.3 percent of all corporations with assets of $250 million or more, down from 44.1 percent last year. The projected rate of hours of work spent per audit also fell from 978 hours/audit to 958.