23.1 Computing Alternative Minimum Tax on Form 6251

After you determine your regular income tax liability, you use Form 6251 to compute AMT liability, if any. The checklist below gives an indication as to when you may have to use Form 6251. The checklist items are discussed at 23.2–23.5.

If you check any of the items on the list, you should complete Form 6251 to determine if you are liable for AMT. These items are AMT adjustments and preferences and generally are added back to regular taxable income to calculate alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI). The items that most commonly get added back to income when calculating AMTI are state and local taxes and miscellaneous itemized deductions.

Items subject to AMT:		Check: √
1.	Personal exemptions
2.	Standard deduction
3.	Itemized deductions for taxes, miscellaneous expenses, and medical expenses
4.	Interest on home equity debt used for nonresidential purposes
5.	Accelerated depreciation in excess of straight line
6.	Income from the exercise of incentive stock options
7.	Tax-exempt interest from private activity bonds
8.	Intangible drilling costs
9.	Depletion
10.	Circulation expenses
11.	Mining exploration and development costs
12.	Research and experimental costs
13.	Pollution control facility amortization
14.	Tax-shelter farm income or loss
15.	Passive income or loss
16.	Certain installment sale income
17.	Income from long-term contracts computed under percentage-of-income method
18.	Net operating loss deduction
19.	Foreign tax credit
20.	Investment expenses
21.	Gain on small business stock qualifying for exclusion

AMT exemption amounts for 2016. For 2016, the AMT exemption is $83,800 for married couples filing jointly and qualifying widows/widowers, $53,900 for single persons and heads of households, and $41,900 for married persons filing separately. These amounts may be reduced under the phaseout rule discussed next. For 2017, the exemption amounts may be increased for inflation; see the e-Supplement at jklasser.com.

Phaseout of exemption for 2016.The AMT exemptions are subject to a phaseout rule. For 2016, 25% of the exemption amount is phased out for each $1 of AMTI (Line 28 of Form 6251) exceeding $159,700 for married couples filing jointly and qualifying widows/widowers, $119,700 for single taxpayers and heads of household, and $79,850 for married persons filing separately. For 2017, the phaseout thresholds will likely be increased for inflation; see the e-Supplement at jklasser.com.

Under the phaseout formula, the exemption for 2016 is completely phased out when AMTI equals or exceeds: $494,900 for married couples filing jointly and qualifying widows/widowers, $335,300 for single taxpayers and heads of household, and $247,450 for married persons filing separately. The Form 6251 instructions have a worksheet for figuring the phaseout.

If a married person filing separately has AMTI exceeding the $247,450 phaseout endpoint, 25% of the excess over $247,450, but no more than $41,900 (the full exemption amount), must be added to the AMTI before applying the AMT rates.

AMT calculation. After reducing AMTI by the allowable exemption, the 26% and possibly 28% AMT rate is applied. For 2016, the 26% AMT rate generally applies to the first $186,300 of AMTI, or $93,150 if married filing separately. The 28% rate applies to any balance of the AMTI over $186,300 or $93,150. However, if you had net capital gains that qualify for reduced capital gains rates (5.3), you apply the same capital gains rate for AMT purposes as for regular income tax purposes; the capital gains calculation is made on page 2 of Form 6251. The boundary between the 26% and 28% brackets will likely be increased for 2017 by an inflation adjustment; see the e-Supplement at jklasser.com.

The resulting tax, less any AMT foreign tax credit, is the tentative AMT, which applies only to the extent it exceeds your regular income tax. For this purpose, regular income tax is the tax on Line 44 of Form 1040, plus any repayment of advances of the premium tax credit (25.12), with no reduction for tax credits other than the foreign tax credit, minus any special averaging tax on a lump-sum distribution (available only if you were born before January 2, 1936 (7.3)). If income averaging was used on Schedule J to figure the regular tax for farm or fishing income (22.6), that tax must be refigured without using averaging for purposes of determining AMT.

The excess, if any, of tentative AMT over the regular tax (modified as required by the Form 6251 instructions) is the AMT liability that you must report as an additional tax on Line 45 of Form 1040. You do not have to pay the AMT if your regular tax (adjusted as required) equals or exceeds the tentative AMT.

Follow the line-by-line instructions to Form 6251 to figure your AMT liability, if any.

23.2 Adjustments and Preferences for AMT

If you itemize deductions on Schedule A, the starting point for figuring alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI) on Form 6251 is your adjusted gross income reduced by the itemized deductions. If you claim the standard deduction, the AMT starting point is your adjusted gross income; the standard deduction is not allowed when figuring AMTI. Personal exemptions claimed for regular tax purposes are also not allowed for AMT purposes.

You have to add back to your income certain tax breaks allowed for regular tax purposes, as described below. In some cases, a negative adjustment reduces AMTI. Some of the items discussed below are technically “preference items” under the Internal Revenue Code (such as interest from private activity bonds), rather than “adjustments”, but the IRS lists them together on Part I of Form 6251 as items that increase or decrease AMTI.

Certain itemized deductions disallowed for AMT purposes. Some key itemized deductions claimed on Schedule A are disallowed or reduced when figuring alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI) on Form 6251. For example, no AMT deduction is allowed for state and local income (or, if elected, sales) taxes, real property taxes, or personal property taxes, or for foreign income or real property taxes. Also, you are not allowed an AMT deduction for miscellaneous itemized deductions that you claimed on Schedule A after application of the 2% of AGI floor. A smaller deduction for medical expenses is allowed for AMT than for regular tax purposes. The deduction for interest on home equity mortgage loans may have to be reduced. Investment interest may have to be refigured for AMT.

The required AMT adjustments for these deductions are discussed in the following paragraphs.

Mortgage interest. Less interest may be deductible for AMT purposes than for regular tax purposes. If an interest deduction is claimed on Schedule A for debt that does not qualify under the AMT rules, that interest is added back as an adjustment on Form 6251.

No AMT adjustment is required for home mortgage interest paid on a debt incurred to buy, construct, or substantially rehabilitate your principal residence or qualifying second residence. The residence may be a house, apartment, cooperative apartment, condominium, or mobile home not used on a transient basis. Nor is an adjustment required for interest on a debt incurred before July 1, 1982, provided that the mortgage was secured at the time it was taken out by your principal residence or any other home used by you or a family member.

An adjustment is required for home mortgage interest on a loan used for any purpose other than to buy, build, or substantially improve your principal residence or second residence. If your Schedule A deduction includes interest on a refinanced loan (including a second or later refinancing), you must treat as an AMT adjustment any interest on the new mortgage balance that exceeded the balance of the prior debt immediately before the refinancing (whether it was the balance of the original debt or balance of a prior refinancing).

The instructions to Form 6251 have a worksheet for figuring the home mortgage interest adjustment.

Taxes. State, local, and foreign taxes deducted on Schedule A must be added back to income in figuring AMT.

If you received in 2016 a refund of taxes deducted in a prior year and the refund is reported as income on your 2016 Form 1040 (11.5–11.6), you enter the refund on Form 6251 as a negative adjustment in figuring alternative minimum taxable income.

Medical expenses. If you are claiming medical expenses as an itemized deduction on Schedule A using the 7.5% AGI floor because you or your spouse is age 65 or older at the end of the year (17.1), you must add back to income on Form 6251 the smaller of the allowable medical deduction from Schedule A or 2.5% of adjusted gross income. The effect of this adjustment is to allow medical expenses as an AMT deduction only to the extent the expenses exceed 10% of AGI. No AMT adjustment is required for taxpayers under age 65 because their Schedule A deduction is already limited by the 10% floor.

Miscellaneous deductions. In figuring alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI), you may not deduct miscellaneous itemized deductions in excess of 2% of adjusted gross income that you claim on Schedule A; you must add them back to AMTI. These include unreimbursed job expenses (19.3), tax preparation fees (19.16), and contingent legal fees paid to recover taxable damages in employment or personal legal actions (19.18).

Investment interest. If for regular tax purposes you claimed an itemized deduction (Schedule A) for investment interest on Form 4952, you must complete a second Form 4952 to determine if your allowable deduction for AMT is more or less than the itemized deduction, taking into account AMT adjustments and preferences. The difference between the regular tax deduction and the allowable AMT deduction is entered on Form 6251 as a positive adjustment if the regular tax deduction is more, or as a negative adjustment if the AMT amount is more. For example, if you paid interest on a home equity loan whose proceeds were invested in stocks or bonds, that interest is not treated as investment interest on Form 4952 when figuring the itemized deduction for regular tax purposes, but it is included as investment interest on the second Form 4952 used to figure the allowable AMT amount.

Net operating losses. A net operating loss (NOL) claimed for regular tax purposes must be recomputed for AMT. The recomputed loss, or ATNOLD (alternative tax net operating loss deduction), is generally the excess of the deductions allowed in figuring AMTI (alternative minimum taxable income) over the income included in AMTI. For example, the nonbusiness deduction adjustment (40.19) must be separately figured for the ATNOLD, taking into account only nonbusiness income and deductions included in AMTI. Thus, state and local taxes and other itemized deductions that are not allowable AMT deductions (23.2) do not reduce nonbusiness income in figuring the ATNOLD.

The ATNOLD generally is limited to 90% of AMTI but certain losses (such as qualified disaster losses) are not subject to the 90% limit; see the instructions to Form 6251 for further details.

Tax-exempt interest on private activity bonds. You generally must increase alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI) by tax-exempt interest on private activity bonds issued after August 7, 1986 and before 2009, and on such bonds issued after 2010, but this does not include qualified 501(3) bonds, New York Liberty bonds, Gulf Opportunity Zone bonds, and Midwestern disaster area bonds. Also, if issued after July 30, 2008, qualified mortgage bonds, veterans’ mortgage bonds, and exempt-facility bonds that have at least 95% of the net proceeds going to fund qualified residential rental projects are not treated as private activity bonds for AMT purposes.

Any bonds issued in 2009 and 2010 that would otherwise be treated as private activity bonds are not considered private activity bonds, so the interest on the 2009/2010 bonds does not get added back to AMTI.

Exclusion on qualifying small business stock. If you sold small business stock qualifying for an exclusion (5.7), 7% of the excluded gain must be added as a positive adjustment to AMTI.

Incentive stock option (ISO). For regular tax purposes, you are not taxed when you exercise an incentive stock option (ISO) (2.16). If you acquire stock by exercising an ISO and you dispose of that stock in the same year, the tax treatment under the regular tax and the AMT is the same. No AMT adjustment is required. However, if you do not sell the stock in the same year that the option is exercised, the exercise of an ISO can result in a substantial AMT liability. You generally must increase AMT income by including on Form 6251 the excess, if any, of:

1. The fair market value of the stock acquired through exercise of the option (determined without regard to any lapse restriction) when your rights in the acquired stock first become transferable or when these rights are no longer subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture, over
2. The amount you paid for the stock, including any amount you paid for the ISO used to acquire the stock.

You should have received a Form 3941 from your employer that indicates the number of shares you acquired when you exercised the ISO, the exercise price you paid for each acquired share, and the fair market value of each share on the exercise date. You can use these Form 3921 entries to figure the AMT adjustment (fair market value of acquired shares minus the amount you paid).

If in the year you exercise the ISO your rights in the acquired ISO stock are not transferable and are subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture, you do not report the AMT adjustment until the year your rights become transferable or are no longer forfeitable. However, within 30 days of the transfer to you of the stock acquired through exercise of the ISO, you may elect to include in AMT income for that year the excess of the stock’s fair market value (determined without regard to any lapse restriction) over the exercise price; see the discussion of the Section 83(b) election at 2.17.

If you report an AMT adjustment for stock acquired through the exercise of an ISO, increase the AMT basis of the stock by the amount of the adjustment. Since the AMT basis in stock acquired through an ISO is likely to be significantly higher than your regular tax basis, you may have a larger gain for regular tax purposes and a larger loss for AMT purposes in the year you sell the stock. This would produce a negative adjustment for AMT. Follow the Form 6251 instructions to the line for “Dispositions of Property”.

MACRS depreciation. Depreciation allowed for AMT may differ from that allowed for regular tax purposes. For example, if for regular tax purposes you use the 200% declining balance method to depreciate business equipment with a recovery period of three, five, seven, or 10 years (42.5), the difference between the regular depreciation and the 150% declining balance rate method allowed for AMT is generally an adjustment that increases alternative minimum taxable income, but there is an exception for property eligible for bonus depreciation (42.21) ; see the Form 6251 instructions.

There is no AMT adjustment for real estate placed in service after 1999. For real estate placed in service before 1999, the adjustment is the difference between the straight-line depreciation claimed for regular tax purposes using the recovery period discussed in 42.13 and the straight-line recovery over the AMT 40-year recovery period.

The adjustment for MACRS may result in providing more depreciation for AMT purposes where the AMT depreciation computation towards the latter part of the useful life of the property provides larger deductions than the regular MACRS deduction. If the AMT deduction exceeds the regular tax deduction, the difference is entered as a negative adjustment that reduces alternative minimum taxable income.

Basis adjustment affects AMT gain or loss. When post-1986 depreciable assets are sold, gain for AMT purposes is figured on the basis of the property as adjusted by depreciation claimed for AMT purposes. This gain or loss will be different from the gain or loss figured for regular tax purposes where regular MACRS depreciation was used.

Oil and gas costs. Independent oil and gas producers and royalty owners do not have to refigure depletion deductions for the AMT. Excess intangible drilling costs (IDC) are generally not treated as a preference item unless they exceed 40% of AMT income; see the instructions to Form 6251.

Mining exploration and development costs. Unless the optional 10-year deduction was elected for regular tax purposes for mining exploration and development costs, the costs must be amortized ratably over a 10-year period for AMT purposes. The difference between the regular tax deduction and AMT deduction is entered on Form 6251 as an adjustment (positive or negative).

If a mine is abandoned as worthless, all mining exploration and development costs that have not been written off are deductible in the year of abandonment.

Circulation costs. If circulation costs were deducted in full for regular tax purposes (instead of using the optional three-year write-off), they must be amortized over three years for the AMT. The difference between the two allowable deductions must be reported as an adjustment on Form 6251, as either a positive or negative amount.

Long-term contracts. The use of the completed contract method of accounting or certain other methods of accounting for long-term contracts is generally not allowable for AMT. The percentage of completion method must be used to figure the AMT income from a long-term contract. However, there is an exception for home construction contracts.The difference between the regular tax and AMT income is an AMT adjustment, either positive or negative.

Research and experimental expenditures. Costs must be amortized over 10 years for AMT purposes if incurred in a business in which you are not a material participant. The difference between the regular tax and AMT deductions must be entered as an adjustment (positive or negative) on Form 6251.

Passive tax-shelter farm losses. Generally, no AMT loss is deductible for any tax-shelter farm activity. A tax-shelter farm activity is any farming syndicate or any farming activity in which you do not materially participate. You may be treated as a material participant if a member of your family materially participates or you meet certain retirement or disability tests discussed at 10.6.

Gains and losses reported for regular tax purposes from tax-shelter farm activities must be refigured by taking into account any AMT adjustments and preferences. However, a refigured loss is not allowed for AMT purposes except to the extent that you are insolvent at the end of the year. This means that you deduct the loss to the extent of your insolvency. Insolvency is the excess of liabilities over fair market value of assets. Any AMT-disallowed loss is carried forward to later years in which there is gain from that same activity, or until you dispose of the activity.

Passive losses from nonfarming activities. The passive losses are reduced by preference or adjustment items not allowed for AMT purposes. For example, an adjustment for MACRS depreciation is made directly against the passive loss and is not treated as a separate AMT adjustment item. The loss allowed for AMT purposes is increased by the amount by which you are insolvent at the end of the year. See the instructions to Form 6251, which suggest that the AMT adjustment of passive losses be figured on a separate Form 8582 that you do not file.

23.3 Tax Credits Allowed Against AMT

The only tax credit allowed in computing tentative alternative minimum tax liability on Form 6251 is a revised version of the foreign tax credit allowed for regular tax purposes. The allowable credit is generally based on foreign source AMT income. If the AMT foreign tax credit exceeds the limits detailed in the Form 6251 instructions, the unused amount generally may be carried back or forward; follow the Form 6251 instructions.

The AMT foreign tax credit reduces the tentative AMT figured on Form 6251 before comparing it to your regular tax liability. You subtract your regular tax from the tentative AMT, and if the result is more than zero, that is your actual AMT liability.

If there is an AMT liability on Form 6251, you enter the AMT as a separate tax on Line 45 of Form 1040. If you are entitled to any nonrefundable personal tax credits (including the child tax credit, dependent care credit, education credits, adoption credit, saver’s credit; see 25.1), you may use them to offset your AMT as well as your regular tax liability.

23.4 AMT Tax Credit From Regular Tax

You may be able to reduce your regular 2016 tax by a tax credit based on AMT incurred in prior years. The prior-year AMT had to be attributable to “deferral items” such as the ISO adjustment or depreciation that provide only a temporary difference to taxable income. Use Form 8801 to figure the credit. The credit is not allowed for 2016 unless your regular tax liability (as reduced by allowable tax credits) for 2016 exceeds your tentative alternative minimum tax liability for 2016 as shown on Form 6251.

23.5 Avoiding AMT

If you are within the range of the AMT tax, review periodically your income and expenses to determine whether to postpone or accelerate income, defer the payment of expenses, and/or make certain tax elections.

There are elections, such as the election of alternative straight-line MACRS depreciation, that may avoid AMT adjustments. However, such elections will increase your regular tax. Similarly, adjustment treatment for mining exploration and development costs, circulation expenses, and research expenses can be avoided by elections to amortize (23.2).

If you are on the verge of becoming subject to the AMT, or are already subject to the AMT, and the 26% or 28% AMT rate exceeds your top rate for regular tax purposes you might want to consider the following steps:

• Postpone income that could trigger AMT by pushing your income over the AMT exemption. On a sale of property, an installment sale (5.21) can spread gain over a number of years.
• Do not prepay state or local income taxes or property taxes, as these are not deductible under the AMT.
• Spread out the exercise of incentive stock options (ISOs) over more than one year to limit the AMT adjustment for the bargain element (the difference between the option price and the fair market value of the stock on the date of exercise). If you exercise an ISO and hold the acquired stock beyond the end of the year, the bargain element is subject to AMT (23.2). You may find yourself with an unexpected tax liability and if the stock has depreciated in value since the date of exercise, you may find yourself short of funds to pay the liability even after selling the stock. To limit the AMT adjustment, you can stagger the exercise of options over more than one year. You can avoid the adjustment completely by selling the stock in the same year that the option was exercised, but if you do, any gain on the sale will be taxed as ordinary income and not at the favorable rate for long-term capital gains.

Accelerating income. If you are generally in a high tax bracket and project that you will be subject to AMT in a current year, you may want to subject additional income in that year to the 26% or 28% AMT tax rate. In such a case, consider accelerating the receipt of income to that year. If you are in business, you might ask for earlier payments from customers or clients. If you control a small corporation, you might prepay your salary or pay yourself a larger bonus, but be careful in the subsequent year not to run afoul of the reasonable compensation rule.