Tax

The Alternative Minimum Tax doesn't seem like an environmental issue. But it is. The AMT has become a secret tax on cities.

Cities are more energy efficient and contribute to global warming less than suburbs. Any solution to our oil addiction and our excessive dependence on greenhouse gas producing fuels will require more mass transit and denser communities.

We should, in short, be encouraging people to move to cities, not charging them extra to do so.

Yet, families with a professional salary living in high-cost urban areas are likely to discover that they are subject to the AMT, and that under the AMT, state income and property taxes are not deductible. Not only is the cost of taxes higher to live in high-service cities, but the AMT demands also that you pay federal taxes on money you've already paid in state taxes.

"The current federal investment and production tax credits are set to
expire at the end of 2008. If they are not extended soon, the
development and financing of most solar and wind projects in the U.S.
will grind to a halt about halfway through next year." That warning in a BusinessWeek viewpoint is a wake-up call to Congress to get moving on an important fix, one of many that can start making a difference in solving climate right away.