Ugh AMT!!

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]The way to not pay the AMT is to vote Republican so we can have some semblance of a reasonable tax code where people can keep more of their money to spend the way they want to spend their money rather than how Schumer and Pelosi want to spend your money![/quote]

Ha, ha, another dumb voter who didn't do their homework. I'm a tax professional. Trump's tax plan will keep taxes roughly the same for normal Americans. He plans to get rid of AMT, but is also dropping the state tax and property tax deductions. I ran the calcs for me and a friend who make $300K and $100K respectively, and total tax paid is about equal under current vs. Trump's plan.

He's making 3 tax brackets of 12%, 25%, and 33%. The only people who really benefit are those in the 35% and 39.6% tax bracket now (plus 3.8% tax on investment income), because their rates are dropping to 33%. That's a huge decrease for them.
So, the only beneficiaries of the Republican tax plan are millionaires/billionaires. Do the math.

[Anonymous]

AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

Thanks for the advice but I don't think I'm in a position to do that given local real estate costs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

Thanks for the advice but I don't think I'm in a position to do that given local real estate costs.

You just need one property, and it can be leveraged -- in fact, it probably needs to be in order to increase your overall costs. So you CAN do it if you want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

As I recall this loophole was closed for most people through passive activity loss limitations. It's true it wasn't closed for Trump and people whose primary job is real estate development but I think the average real estate investor can only offset real estate losses against real estate income?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It puzzels me when people say you need to make more to avoid the AMT. it is like people hate the word not more taxes.

AMT forces certain midrange incomes (mostly in the 25%-28% tax bracket with certain deduction) to pay taxes using the AMT formula which only has two brackets (26%-28%). If a good chunk of your income falls above the 33% bracket then of course you are not paying the AMT but you are paying even more taxes.

I do not know if this will make everyone feel better but think of it as we are all riding the same train and at a certain station we need to get off and ride the AMT train for a bit. Then you get off on the next stop and hop back on the old track. I am not jealous of the people who never pay the AMT; they are less fortunate than I am. I am not jealous of people who don't pay the AMT because they make too much; they have already been there and paid their dues and then paying some more.

I don't understand it either. Yea, make more money and you'll bring home 62 cents per dollar vs 72 cents. Of course making more moneynos great, but if yiu are actually focused on your tax rate, then making more money, you bring home less proportionally.

I alway love the end of may because that month signifies the start of me making money i get to keep. For 5 months of my working year, i hand every penny over to the government. I turn they probably squander and waste half of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

Thanks for the advice but I don't think I'm in a position to do that given local real estate costs.

Don't invest locally. I have investments all over Clarke County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

[Anonymous]

I too paid the AMT this year and last. I paid it because I have seen a big jump in my income. Certainly not complaining about that.

[Anonymous]

"true, but as the poster above points out it sucks that high-earning professionals get really screwed when it comes to taxes while trust funders get better treatment.
"

tax code is set up to screw dual earners in expensive spots to live while giving plenty of outs to the truly rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

the game is fukt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

I could do what Trump did if my dad could give me $12 million dollars; unfortunately they aren't able to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

I could do what Trump did if my dad could give me $12 million dollars; unfortunately they aren't able to do that.

True, most boomers wasted all their money and didn't want to invest it on the next generation. Can't wait till they all die

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AMT is honestly making me less motivated to work hard or even work at all. I just had $3,000 added to my tax bill. My spouse and I still have student loans, and we can't deduct the interest paid because we make too much! So we don't get deductions and we get AMT tacked on while we work "normal" jobs and try to pay off debt and save a little money. Meanwhile our dipshit president had everything handed to him in life and pays no taxes.

There's no reason why you can't make real estate investments and claim the same initial depreciation to reduce your overall liability. That's what Trump did; that's what real estate investors do. It's not some big secret. You can read about it on countless blogs for amateur landlords.

As I recall this loophole was closed for most people through passive activity loss limitations. It's true it wasn't closed for Trump and people whose primary job is real estate development but I think the average real estate investor can only offset real estate losses against real estate income?

The poster above is correct. Having investment properties won't help you with regards to AMT. If you aren't a real estate professional, you can't deduct rental property losses from your regular W-2 income if you make over $150,000 or so as a married couple.