Look at the initial lines of form 6251 to see which items
have to be added to the AMT income. You have to do them all
and complete form 6251 to determine AMTax.

Think of the AMT as the basic tax system and the regular tax
as a way of either having to pay more tax than the AMT, or
trying to "beat the regular tax system", You must pay the
greater of the two systems. If you can't reduce your
regular tax to the AMT tax level you're stuck with having to
pay more than the AMT. When you have reduced your regular
tax to below the AMT you pay the AMT amount,

This is deviously expressed on form 1040 as though you pay
your reguar tax PLUS the "AMT tax", The AMT tax (on form
1040) is the difference between the full AMT tax and your
regular tax. The total tax on 1040 is the sum of your
regular tax and AMT. This total tax is actully the AMT
caluczted on form 6251. After subtracting your regular tax,
the difference is the amount you put on your 1040 as AMT
Tax.

So, they want you to think the AMT is a culprit you're
getting hit by, when the actual culprit is the phony (when
AMT applies to you) tax reduction schemes that reduce your
regular tax to a point that the AMT system tax is greater.

ed

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"effi" <effi[at]ev1.net> writes:

- quote -

Neither.

Itemized deductions which are allowed under the AMT (such as
charitable contributions and interest on home acquisition
debt) are left alone. Itemized deductions which aren't
allowed under the AMT (such as state and local income and
property taxes) are wiped out completely. And other
itemized deductions may have to be refigured.

--
Rich Carreiro rlcarr[at]animato.arlington.ma.us

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if the alternative minimum tax is invoked upon a taxpayer,
are all itemized deductions disallowed if the taxpayer has
enough amt income, or are itemized deductions just
disallowed down to some minimum deductible amount for amt
purposes?

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