Subject: AMT on Incentive Stock Options forces liquidation of Children's College Fund Comment: Below is a copy of my Testimony to the Ways & Means Oversight sub-committee hearing on " Tax Simplification" this past summer Statement from Mark Flatman Before the House Ways and Means Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight Washington, D.C. My name is Mark Flatman and as a working-class citizen of the United States I recently had to use my children’s college education fund to pay a tax liability based on the Alternative Minimum Tax application to Incentive Stock Options just so the government could owe me tax credits for the next 10 years. In the late 1990s, I worked for a software company. While I still could, I exercised the Incentive Stock Options that I had planned to hold as a long term investment. In early 2000, that software company went through a merger and I lost my job. When I filed my 2000 taxes in 2001, I found out that I would have to pay $13,000 more than I thought because I was subject to an AMT tax. In the meantime, the value of the stock had plummeted from nearly $100 down to $10 by the end of 2000. I'm very fortunate that I had the ability to pay this unexpected tax, but it was at the expense of my children’s college education. I not only lost my job and my investment, but I estimate that it will probably take about 10 years to recover the tax credits from this tax. Please consider reforming the AMT tax law so that it will not hurt the working class Americans. Mark Flatman Cumming, Georgia |