Reply to If you make 300K or more do you always end up writing 15-20k+ check to the IRS?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I have never really understood AMT. can someone give me a "AMT For Dummies" explanation?[/quote]

The AMT is an alternative way of figuring federal income taxes. You need to figure your taxes both ways (the regular way and the AMT) and you owe whichever way results in higher taxes.

Basically, when computer the AMT you deduct this much from your income (the 2013 AMT exemption):

Single taxpayers: $51,900 
Married taxpayers filing jointly: $80,800 
Married filing separately: $40,400 
Head of Household: $51,900

You can also take a few other deductions including charitable contributions and mortgage interest, but many of the deductions allowed under the regular tax system are not allowed under the AMT. You cannot deduct real estate taxes or state and local taxes. You cannot take any personal exemptions, so if you have kids you can no longer take an exemption for them. You can only take the AMT exemption listed above. Interest on home equity loans is only deductible under the AMT if it was used to improve the home (not if it was used to buy a car or pay college tuition).

The AMT is then computed on the remaining income.

The AMT has two tax rates. For 2013 the AMT 26% tax bracket ends the AMT 28% tax bracket begins at $179,500 for all tax statuses except married filing separately. For married filing separately the 28% tax bracket kicks in at half that amount.

However, it is still more complicated than this. The AMT exemptions listed above start to phase out if your income goes above a certain amount:

$115,400 for single or head of household
$153,900 for married filing jointly
$76,950 for married filing separately

The AMT exemption phases out completely by these levels:

$314,900 for single or head of household
$465,000 for married filing jointly
$232,500 for married filing separately

If your income is in the phase-out band (for example, $153,900 to $465,000 for married filing jointly) your effective AMT tax rate is actually 35%, not 28%, because with each dollar of increased income you are losing part of your exemption.

That's a brief overview. If you have a lot of capital gains or qualified dividends you should look at how the AMT affects the taxation on those. While they are still taxed at lower rates, the income from them counts toward the AMT phase-out so you may be paying an additional 7% tax on them that you are not aware of.

Since the AMT exemption for married filing jointly is only about 1.5 times what it is for filing single, a lot of married couples are hit by the AMT when neither would be if they were single and filed separately. The phase-out for married filing jointly is also much lower than the phase-out for single. Thus the AMT acts as a big marriage penalty for two professional career couples. My husband and I have a joint income of about $300,000, fairly evenly split between the two of us. We get totally screwed by the AMT.

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