Submit a Question What is the AMT? AMT Adjustments AMT Exemption Minimum Tax Credit AMT NOL AMT Preferences Forms

AMT Rates:

26%, on Alternative Minimum Taxable Income (AMTI) up to

2024 - $232,600 ($116,300 for             married filing separately)

2023 - $220,700 ($110,350 for             married filing separately)

2022 - $206,100 ($103,050 for             married filing separately)

28% on AMTI over the above amounts.

AMT Exemption Amounts

(Before Phase-Out)

Taxpayers Filing Single or Head of Household:

2024 - $85,700

2023 - $81,300

2022 - $75,900

Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Widower:

2024 - $133,300

2023 - $126,500

2022 - $118,100

Married Filing Separately:

2024 - $66,650

2023 - $63,250

2022 - $59,050


Phase-Out Thresholds

The AMT exemption is reduced by 25% of the amount that alternative minimum taxable income exceeds the threshold amounts listed below.

Single or Head of Household

2024 - $609,350

2023 - $578,150

2022 - $539,900

Married Filing Jointly  or Qualifying Widowers

2024 - $1,218,700

2023 - $1,156,300

2022 - $1,079,800

Married Filing Separately

2024 - $609,350

2023 - $578,150

2022 - $539,900


How to Submit  A Question to the AMT Advisor



Have an Alternative Minimum Tax Question?

The AMT Advisor Can Help!

Answers to your questions about AMT law - Alternative Minimum Tax law is difficult for a person without specialized tax training to understand. Even with the necessary information resources, it can take an average taxpayer hours to determine the answer to a question about the AMT. The AMT Advisor, a tax accountant with a Masters of Law (LL.M.) degree in Taxation from one of the nation's leading tax law programs, can provide the answers to all your AMT law questions, simple and complex, and explain the AMT to you in terms you can understand.

Assistance with AMT tax form preparation - Filling out Form 6251,
Alternative Minimum Tax - Individuals, and Form 8801, Credit for Prior Year
Minimum Tax - Individuals, Estates and Trusts
, can be very confusing.
Unfortunately, the form instructions are often of little help to the average
taxpayer. The AMT Advisor is a professional tax accountant with extensive
return preparation experience, able to assist you with the preparation of AMT tax forms and the calculation of specific items for the forms.

Answers to your questions about incentive stock options and the
minimum tax credit - The AMT rules regarding the exercise of incentive
stock options (ISOs) and the Minimum Tax Credit are baffling to most
taxpayers, and the incorrect application of the rules can cost a taxpayer who has exercised ISOs thousands of dollars in overpaid taxes and missed credits. The AMT Advisor has the expertise to help you make sure that you don't pay more AMT than you should because of the exercise of ISOs, and that you are able to use the Minimum Tax Credit generated by the exercise of ISOs to your full advantage.

Assistance with correspondence and questions from the IRS - Got a
letter from the IRS about the AMT? Don't understand what they are talking
about or what they want? The AMT Advisor can review the correspondence,
explain what it means, and advise you on how best to proceed in response to it.

AMT tax planning - The AMT Advisor can advise you how to avoid the AMT
in future years.

Click here to find out how to submit a question to the AMT Advisor.

Free AMT Information

The AMT Advisor website provides free explanatory information about specific aspects of the AMT and the AMT forms and their instructions. Click on the links below to go to the page with the information you need.


Why Did Congress Create the AMT?

In the 1960s, studies by the Treasury Department showed that some high-
income taxpayers were through legal tax planning able to either greatly
reduce the amount of tax they paid or pay no tax at all. Congress became
concerned that the fact that these taxpayers were through legal methods able to pay an effective tax rate that was much lower than other taxpayers with lower taxable income was incompatible with the progressive nature of the tax system, under which a larger portion of the overall tax burden is intended to be shouldered by taxpayers with higher incomes. Congress was also concerned that the appearance that high income taxpayers were favored under the tax system undermined the public’s faith in the system. To address these concerns, the original alternative minimum tax provisions were added to the tax code to make sure that all high-income taxpayers would have to pay a minimum amount of tax.

Because high income taxpayers were largely able to reduce their tax liabilities to unacceptable levels through the use of certain deductions, credits, and exclusions, the AMT focuses primarily on eliminating the benefit of these items to high income taxpayers. Since 1969, the alternative minimum tax system has undergone significant changes, but the focus of the system has remained on eliminating tax benefits that can be legally but unfairly (in the eyes of Congress and the IRS) manipulated by high-income taxpayers. The AMT rules have been repeatedly modified throughout the years because they have been found to be ineffective in achieving the objective of making all high income taxpayers pay a minimum amount of tax. Despite these changes, the AMT continues to be fairly ineffective in producing the results that Congress intended.

The individual AMT was almost eliminated as part of tax reform in late 2017, but in the end, while the corporate AMT was eliminated, the individual AMT was not. However, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 did increase the AMT exemption amounts and and the phase-out thresholds for the exemption significantly. As a result, far fewer taxpayers will be subject to the AMT in 2018 through 2025. However, the provisions increasing those amounts sunset in 2025, so unless the provisions are extended, in 2026, the old lower exemption and amounts will spring back into effect. Therefore, while most taxpayer’s have been granted a reprieve from the AMT, it may not be permanent.

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