preview

Tax Benefits Of The Tax

Decent Essays

Under the tax law, certain tax benefits can significantly reduce a taxpayer’s regular tax amount. The alternative minimum tax (AMT) applies to taxpayers with high income by setting a limit on those benefits. It helps to ensure that those taxpayers pay at least a minimum amount of tax. The AMT is the excess of the tentative minimum tax over the regular tax. Therefore, the AMT is owed only if the tentative minimum tax is greater than the regular tax. The tentative minimum tax is figured separately from the regular tax. In general, compute the tentative minimum tax by:
1. “Computing taxable income eliminating or reducing certain exclusions and deductions, and taking into account differences with respect to when certain items are taken into account in computing regular taxable income and alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI)”
2. “Subtracting the AMT exemption amount”
3. “Multiplying the amount computed in (2) by the appropriate AMT tax rates”
4. “Subtracting the AMT foreign tax credit” (IRS.gov, 2016) (p. 1)
The federal tax law sets the AMT exemption amounts and AMT tax rates. Taxpayers can use the special capital gain rates in effect for the regular tax if they are lower than the AMT tax rates that would otherwise apply. Some tax credits that reduce regular tax liability do not reduce AMT tax liability. If a taxpayer is not liable for AMT this year, but he or she paid AMT in one or more previous years, they may be eligible to take a special minimum tax credit against their

Get Access