Harry and Mary Prodigious are married filing jointly and have 12 children. Six of the children are under the age of 17 in 2011. With the large number of children, they live in austerity . Harry, in his spare time, works a large garden that provides food for the family. Mary makes all the chldrens clothes. Harry works for a local engineering firm and earns a salary of $100,000 in 2011. Mary does not work outside the home. The only other income is taxable interest in the amount of $8,000. They claim the standard deduction in filing their 2011 return and have no tax preference or adjustments for purposes of the AMT.
a. Compute Harry and Mary's regular tax and AMT under the facts above.
b. Comment on the tax policy implications of your answer in Part a above.