Well I was under the impression it was for "rich people" to pay. I am certainly not one of them, yet I had to pay it.

The problem is that AMT was not moved with inflation so more and more taxpayers are caught in this net every year.

I'm not even CLOSE to being in the "rich" Hell I'm much much closer to the bottom than the top.

Did you use TurboTax? Are you sure you did it right? I did my sister's taxes, and the first time round it hit her with the AMT. I don't remember what we did to fix it (sorry), but I do think it was caught by the error checking.

Yes I used Turbo tax and did it numerous times. Error check did not pick up on it.