Some taxpayers will be delighted to hear that AMT finally got a makeover!

In 1969, 155 taxpayers with incomes over $200K did not pay income tax, there was public outrage, and 10 years later, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was born.  Yup.  It took  10 years!  Today, we change things virtually overnight.  (And sometimes, retroactively…but don’t get me started.)

In 2017, AMT hit 5.2 million taxpayers, many with solid middle class incomes and lifestyles.  This was never the intent of AMT, but simply the result of bad math and unexpected inflation.

For 2018, the estimate is that only about 200,000 people will get hit with AMT.  The math is still crazy, so let’s just be glad you probably no longer have to worry about it.  (Well, most of you, anyway.)