Fiscal deal will cost you: 8 tax changes

Here are eight tax changes under the 'fiscal cliff' deal that may hit your pocketbook.

5. The alternative minimum tax drama ends

Ann Hermes / The Christian Science Monitor / File
An IRS employee exits the US Internal Revenue Service building at the end of the day in Washington, D.C., in this 2012 file photo. By making permanent the indexing of the alternative minimum tax to inflation, Congress has eliminated an annual exercise that kept middle- and upper-middle income earners guessing how much they owed the IRS.

Every year, some 30 million middle- and upper-middle income earners waited to find out if Congress would extend the alternative minimum tax (AMT) patch, which would keep their tax rates from rising rapidly. Congress always did, but often at the last minute and sometimes even retroactively. The new deal ends that annual drama by adjusting annually the AMT thresholds for inflation.

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