Alternative minimum tax Video Lecture - Taxation

Let's see if we can shed some light on the
Alternative Minimum Tax,
which is also one of the most
confusing aspects of taxation in the U.S.,
but hopefully this video will
clarify things a little bit.
So let's go back to that
example from the first video
of the person making $100,000
and what I'm going to do
is I'm going to calculate
the AMT, the Alternative
Minimum Tax for that person
then we're going to see
what happens from there.
So Alternative Minium Tax
for someone making $100,000,
so what I've drawn right over here,
this applies if you
make less than $300,000.
The first 47,000 or so is exempt
when you're calculating the
Alternative Minimum Tax.
So for this person making $100,000,
we're just going to have to consider
the balance above 47,450.
So 100,000 - 47,450, would be what?
It would be 50 ... It would
be 52,000 ... Let's see,
this would be ... So this amount
right over here is going to be
52,000 and then 6 or 550 ...
52,550, if I did my math correct.
That's 100,000 - 47,450
and what the Alternative
Minimum Tax says is
whatever you are above this exemption,
above this 47,450 exemption,
you're just going to pay
a flat 26% on that amount
and if this person had made over 175,000,
it would have been a flat 28%,
but let's not go there,
just complicates things
and these things can get
arbitrarily complicated.
And if the person made over 300,000,
they would have to use the 28%
and this 0, this
exemption would disappear,
but once again, let's
not over complicate it.
Let's just focus on this person.
So this person has to pay 26% of 52,550
which would be ... So it is
.26 x 52,550 gives 13,663.
So 13,663. That is equal to 52,550 x 26%.
So this would be the
Alternative ... Alternative
Minimum Tax calculation, this 13,000.
You're like, "Okay, that's not so bad."
"Do I pay this above
and beyond the 21,000"
"that we calculated in the first video?"
"You know, how does this work
out?", and the answer is no.
You ... The IRS or your
accountant would look at
both of these numbers and you would pay
the higher of the two.
So in this situation, your
regular taxes are higher
than your Alerternative Minimum Tax,
so you would just pay your regular taxes.
Now this does come into
play in situations where
1) if someone is making
a ton of money, the AMT
is probably going to be the larger number,
but in general it would
be the larger number
if this person has a lot of deductions.
So let's say they made $100,000,
but they're able to take
ten grand off because they
have ... They have mortgage
interest that they can deduct,
so maybe they have all sorts
of other crazy deductions.
So that their actual reported
income to the IRS becomes,
I don't know, well maybe
it becomes nothing.
Maybe they're able to deduct everything.
So that with the regular
taxations, it goes down ...
the reported income.
When I say deductions, remember,
I'm not deducting taxes,
I'm reporting income. So
they're able to keep taking
things off of this until eventually
... Well, I won't say nothing,
maybe their reported
income becomes $8,350.
In which case, the regular
taxes would only be $835.
And in this situation, they
would have to pay the 13,663
and that's the whole point of the AMT
is because you had the
situation where people
had all these deductions
and were able to get out of
paying taxes even though
their income was pretty high,
so they had this alternate
calculation to just make sure that
people do pay some taxes.