S uses TurboTax and does his own taxes, on his own timeline. I have been doing D’s, just to carry forward a loss incurred by my dad (her grandpa) in her name. 
She has no income and is 100% dependent on us.
Yes he did pay a NYC tax, so I think NY taxes ended up being even worse. At least the tax in SF was less, for more income.
2015 was the first year my son worked a full year in NYC, I was surprised he had enough state & local income taxes to itemize deductions based on just that alone. I don’t think we ever itemized until we bought a house.
College aged D had income from 3 states so I had to do non-resident CA taxes for her - they were significantly lower than PA’s state taxes would have been on the same money, but her income there was low last year. PA is a flat percentage from the first dollar, no personal exemptions. Next year will be more challenging as she has a good paying CA internship!
Everyone gets a few extra days until the 18th this year, thanks to Abe Lincoln. Here in MA, we get until the 19th, thanks to a bunch of anti-establishment radicals.
No refund for us, though. Although at least we didn’t have to dip into the HELOC to pay the tax bill this year.
Which candidate has promised to abolish AMT? I will vote for them… AMT put us in the 35% bracket this year. Grrr.
I used to do S’s taxes, but he wanted to do them, so he has taken it over. His are very simple, I doubt he even has any other forms except the main one.
AMT is the worst. Whoever abolishes that gets my vote too.
NO! AMT should stay. That’s the only equitable tax there is. Yes, every year I am also shocked how much I have to pay AMT. But I think they should not only stay but also expand to nclude more, mortgage deductions, charitable contributions for a starter
As annoying as the AMT is, it’s just a small part of the picture. One candidate’s plan raises taxes massively, another just a little, the last two’s plans lower them massively. All ridiculously extreme except for one. The AMT ain’t nothing in comparison. If you want to check how you’d fare, there are online calculators you can use, but it might alarm you.
However, nothing will get done anyways.
Equitable? Not hardly.
It was originally aimed at a handful (< 200) of high-income people who managed to avoid paying taxes in 1969.
Now it affects millions of middle and upper-middle class families with incomes in the $100K-400K range, and doesn’t really affect wealthy tax payers at all at this point. It primarily punishes people who live in high-tax states and have large families.
It creates a heavy burden on tax-payers to even try to figure out whether you owe it, and some of the preference items make no sense at all, like the treatment of ISOs. I know people who nearly went bankrupt because of this one “feature”.
AMT almost single-handedly forced me to start using tax software, because the forms and instructions are almost incomprehensible to a normal person, and the pain of having to maintain duplicate depreciation scheuldes on dozens if not hundreds of things was just too painful.
AMT should be taken out behind the barn and put out of our misery.
AMT is both hypocritical as rich folks are not affected by it and is utterly incomprehensible.
But, it is a decent revenue generator, I don’t think we should get rid of it until we have figured out what is going to replace that revenue. I don’t thin there is any real chance in the current environment of a major tax cut (and I fear that major tax decreases would just push the rest of the US down the path Kansas has taken) or a major tax increase.
AMT should stay.
How do you get a 35 percent tax bracket with an AMT? Are you talking about a marginal tax rate of 35 percent?
^ According to the Tax Policy Center, AMT generated about $28 billion in 2015, which is around 2.0% of income tax revenue paid by individuals. While not nothing, it’s not a lot either.
I couldn’t find any estimate of the compliance cost, but I bet it runs in the billions.
We also got nailed this year by both the 0.9% medicare surtax and the 3.8% net investment surtax, although the amounts were small. It’s DW’s fault, she made too much money last year. 
Congress has gone insane, and it is basically impossible to get anything substantial done unless one party controls both House and Senate and the Presidency, or one party has veto- and filibuster-proof majorities in both the House and Senate. I can’t imagine any substantial tax reform along the lines of the 1986 TRA happening in today’s environment.
@notrichenough, A return to a 1986 type tax system would be fine.
In 1986, the long term capital gains tax rate was 28 percent. There was a blip where there was a marginal rate of 33%. I can’t remember if that included long term cap gains.
I am not understanding this 35 percent tax rate on an AMT.
Capital gains are still taxed at 20 percent; although you can be thrown into an AMT because of capital gains.
Once you have figured out the AMT, you will probably be able to do it again and it will be easier. 
AMT has two tax rates, 26% and 28%, subject to an exemption amount. However, at a certain point the exemption starts to phase out, and the way the phaseout works effectively raises the 28% rate to a 35% marginal rate. Once the exemption is fully phased out, the incremental rate returns to 28%, although at that point your income is high enough that you probably aren’t paying AMT anyway.
You think so? Take a look at form 8801, which contains things like
Enter the amount from line 7 of your 2014 Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax Worksheet, the amount from line 14 of your 2014 Schedule D Tax Worksheet, or the amount from line 27 of the 2014 Schedule D (Form 1041), whichever applies. If you didn’t complete either worksheet or Part V of the 2014 Schedule D (Form 1041), enter the amount from your 2014 Form 1040, line 43, or 2014 Form 1041, line 22, whichever applies; if zero or less, enter -0-. Form 1040NR filers, see instructions
Good luck with that. 
Hmmmm…
Ok…I see what form 8801 is.
Never had to use a form 8801.
I am pretty sure a lot of people stuck with an amt are not using form 8801.
I have figured out the amt without forms 8801.
I have a feeling that going forward, because you have used form 8801, figuring out the amt will be easier for you. You can’t transfer information from one line to another on a tax form?
Once you have done something, isn’t it easier the second time?
Forget figuring it out, let Turbotax do the work. That’s crazy complicated.
Turbotax has strengths but sometimes you may not know the tax code well enough to look around for stuff that doesn’t automatically pop up. But I can see where Turbotax has improved, and I am sure is heavily used by those like on this thread!
Some of you are getting hammered by high state/property tax in addition to the federal tax burden. Some may be thinking of living elsewhere for a number of reasons, and quality of life may include paying less state/property taxes.
^ Which is why I now use TaxAct.
If all AMT is doing is getting rid of your schedule A deductions, it’s not so bad. Once you get to line 8 and on, it gets ugly in a hurry. Tracking multiple basises (bases?) for assets, maintaining parallel depreciation schedules for every singe thing you are depreciating, handling ISO exercise, and that’s just the easy stuff.
There was one study done that showed that complying with AMT doubled the amount of time it takes to complete your tax return. All this for 2% of the revenue? Hugely inefficient and frustrating, as compliance nearly requires a degree in taxation, or you have to pay for a tax program or pay someone else to do it for you.
H has appreciated me doing the taxes (or having got professional help - once was expensive but I was in the middle of chemo and unable to do and had a costly firm that I thought was going to be reasonable, the other time was with an amended tax return and the accountant was great and inexpensive because it was an easy fix which saved us a lot of money). H sees how even ‘average’ tax returns needs a knowledge base much higher than the ‘average’ American. It is either putting in the time to do it ‘right’ for the correct tax assessment, or skipping a bunch of deductions that you may not have been aware of having or other tax ‘mistakes’ that cost a lot of time and some expertise to discover.
I’m relieved we have a CPA do our taxes. It has been more than we can handle, even with TurboTax for many years, and H has a BA in accounting and I have a law degree. I wish it was much simpler, but am fine with paying the CPA.