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The Alternative Minimum Tax

You may not be aware of this, since income taxes are so complicated that not a lot of folks do much digging into the nuances, but there is another income tax rate that could affect you in certain circumstances. This other income tax is called the Alternative Minimum Tax, or AMT.  This “alternative” tax applies when you have income above certain thresholds. Essentially it ensures that you pay a certain minimum amount of income tax if your deductions reduce your income so much that your ordinary income tax falls below the minimum applied by the AMT.  It gets pretty complicated, but I’ll go over the high points below. Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) AMT has a separate set of rules for definitions of income and expenses, rules for accounting and timing, and exemptions and tax rates.  AMT limits the tax benefit of certain types of income and deductions, otherwise available to […]