Subject: AMT Reform Comment: I was a victim of the Adjusted Minimum Tax law. I am a mother of 3 young children. My grandmother had a living trust. When she passed away the trust money was to be disbursed to my father and his sister after 5 yrs from the date of her passing. If one of them should die before disbursement then my brother would be the successor trustee and my father's portion would be disbursed to his children (me and my brothers and sisters). My father became terminally ill on the 4th yr and passed away before legal disbursement. Before my father died he illegally liquidated the trust and disbursed the money to himself and his sister. We went through a 2 yr battle in the courts to make the trust whole. Subsequently we won and were awarded an additional $2000 each. (There were 6 of us involved). This money was now the only savings we had. We weren't taxed the first year except on the additional award of $2,000 but on the second year we were taxed over $15,000. This trust was to remain nontaxable, that was how my grandmother's attorney set it up but alas since there was a lawsuit and something else happened that we can't figure out or get answers to is we were taxed severely for receiving this trust money. My husband is the sole income producer in this family and we earned under $100,000 this past year. We don't understand how the government can classify us as "rich" in California, especially. I find it appauling that the trust that was supposed to be protected was robbed twice - once by my father and then by the government! How do you expect people to be consumers and get ahead in life if you keep taking everything that they have! |