Bush Team Recommends Tax Hike on Mortgages and Health Insurance

The panel also is leaning toward limiting the deduction employers can take for paying the premiums for their workers' health insurance. Currently, there is no limit to that deduction, and workers pay no income tax on that compensation.
The panel discussed capping tax breaks for health insurance to the roughly $11,000 benefit provided to members of Congress and federal workers, but reached no consensus. The panel also debated whether to allow employers to continue taking a write-off but force workers to pay tax on the employee benefit.
The irony is that such measures are intended to offset possible reductions in the alternative minimum tax (AMT), which is projected to raise $1.2 trillion in revenue from 2005 to 2015 if left as it is.
Created in 1969 as a tax on about 200 rich Americans who paid no income tax, the AMT is increasingly hitting middle-class Americans.