Subject: Our Struggling Family's Small Savings Took a Big Hit from AMT Comment: I wish to share my story with you in hopes of garnering your support of HR 3385. I am a technical support engineer and I work for a tech company located in San Luis Obispo, California and live nearby in Atascadero with my husband and two young children (10 months and 3 years). Although I make a decent salary, I’m not only the primary breadwinner in our household, but I pretty much support the family right now. My husband is a part-time student, part-time stay at home dad and part-time auto mechanic. He is back in school to earn a degree and change careers not only for his fulfillment, but also so that we may provide a better life for our children. We drive used cars and don’t take fancy vacations. We are definitely your everyday people. Several years ago, as part of my compensation, I was offered stock options through my company. My husband and I were anxious to exercise these to hopefully secure a long-term investment that might help in the future with college funds or retirement. We knew there would be tax implications and were aware of AMT, but felt the investment was the smart thing to do. We purchased our options but had no idea the gross tax implications. While filing our taxes the following April we were shocked at how much of our calculated taxes for the previous year was from AMT. It seems absurd to have to prepay tax were there has been no economic gain. We want to pay our fair share but somehow this just doesn’t seem right. It may not sound like much to some people, but thousands of dollars to this family is at least a month’s expenses, maybe two. This is something we can’t afford to be paying when we are struggling to make our mortgage each month. And now, being faced with more stock options offered at my new company, I am terrified to purchase them until I sit down and compute to see if we can afford to do it this time around. I’m sad to say that I predict we will not be able to take advantage of this opportunity. I respectfully and urgently request your support of HR 3385. Very Sincerely, Heather Thayer Atascadero CA 22 Congressional District |