What Is the Alternative Minimum Tax?

An alternative minimum tax (AMT) places a floor on the percentage of taxes that a filer must pay to the government, no matter how many deductions or credits the filer may claim.

The United States currently has an alternative minimum tax for taxpayers who earn above certain income thresholds.

The AMT recalculates income tax after adding certain tax preference items back into adjusted gross income. It uses a separate set of rules to calculate taxable income after allowed deductions. Preferential deductions are added back into the taxpayer’s income to calculate their alternative minimum taxable income (AMTI), and then the AMT exemption is subtracted to determine the final taxable figure.

How the Alternative Minimum Tax Works

The difference between a taxpayer’s alternative minimum taxable income and his AMT exemption is taxed using the relevant rate schedule. This yields the tentative minimum tax (TMT).

If the tentative minimum tax is higher than the taxpayer’s regular tax liability for the year, then they pay the regular tax and the amount by which the tentative minimum tax exceeds the regular tax. In other words, the taxpayer pays the full tentative minimum tax.

There are two alternative minimum tax rates, 26% and 28%. For 2022, the 28% rate applies to excess alternative minimum taxable income of $206,100 or more for all taxpayers ($103,050 for married couples filing separate returns). For 2023, the 28% rate applies to excess alternative minimum taxable income of $220,700 or more for all taxpayers ($110,350 for married couples filing separate returns). The 26% rate applies to incomes up to those levels.

A taxpayer who has a high income and uses large tax breaks may owe a smaller percentage under the standard rules. If so, the taxpayer is obliged to recalculate the taxes owed under the alternative minimum tax system, which eliminates some of those tax breaks.

The taxpayer will owe whichever amount is higher.

AMT Exemption Amounts

For tax year 2022, the AMT exemption for single filers is $75,900. For married joint filers, the figure is $118,100. For tax year 2023, the figures are $81,300 for single filers and $126,500 for married joint filers.

Taxpayers have to complete Form 6251 to see whether they might owe AMT. First, they subtract the exemption amount from their income. If their AMT is less than the exemption, they do not have to pay AMT.

It’s important to note, though, that taxpayers with AMTI over a certain threshold do not qualify for the AMT exemption. For tax year 2022, the phase-out begins at $539,900 for single filers and $1,079,800 for couples filing jointly. For tax year 2023, the phase-out begins at $578,150 for single filers and $1,156,300.

Purpose of AMT

AMT is designed to prevent taxpayers from escaping their fair share of tax liability through tax breaks. However, in the past, the structure was not indexed to inflation or tax cuts. This can cause bracket creep, a condition in which middle-income taxpayers could be subject to this tax instead of just the wealthy taxpayers for whom AMT was invented. In 2012, however, Congress passed a law indexing the AMT exemption amount to inflation.

Calculating AMT

To determine if they owe AMT, individuals can use tax software that automatically does the calculation, or they can fill out IRS Form 6251. This form takes medical expenses, home mortgage interest, and several other miscellaneous deductions into account to help tax filers determine if their deductions are beyond an overall limit set by the IRS.

The form also requests information on certain types of income such as tax refunds, investment interest, and interest from private activity bonds, as well as numbers corresponding with capital gains or losses related to the disposition of property.

The IRS has specific formulas in place to determine which portion of this income and deductions the tax filers need to note on Form 6251. It uses another set of formulas to determine how these numbers lead to AMTI.

The Bottom Line

The Alternative Minimum Tax is an additional or parallel tax system in the U.S. that is designed to ensure that high-income individuals pay their fair share of taxes. Prior to the AMT, certain taxpayers paid little in the way of taxes, due to preferential treatment of certain income and expenses, or tax breaks.

What Is an Amended Return?

An amended return is a form filed in order to make corrections to a tax return from a previous year. An amended return can correct errors and claim a more advantageous tax status, such as a refund. For example, one might choose to file an amended return in instances of misreported earnings or tax credits. Mathematical errors, however, do not require amendments because the IRS automatically corrects for such errors when processing the tax return.

Who Should File an Amended Return?

All taxpayers are required to file their taxes annually for the previous tax year. Taxpayers may realize that they made a mistake in filling out their tax forms, or their circumstances may have changed after they have submitted or mailed a return that has been accepted by the government. If this occurs, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has provided a way for these individuals to redo their taxes by providing an amended return form, Form 1040-X, on the IRS website.

Not all errors need amending by the form. The IRS will spot and correct a mathematical error, for example, when the initial tax return is sent in for processing. When this happens, any refund owed will be adjusted and any extra tax liability due will be billed to the taxpayer. In the event that the individual fails to include a required form or schedule in their submitted original tax return, the IRS will send a letter requesting that they mail the missing information to one of their offices.

When to File an Amended Return

A taxpayer must file an amended return if:

• The taxpayer’s filing status for the tax year changed or was incorrectly entered. For example, if an individual filed as single but actually got married on the last day of the tax year, they will need to amend their return by filing their taxes under the appropriate status—married filing jointly (MFJ) or married filing separately (MFS).
• The number of dependents claimed is inaccurate. An amended return will be necessary if a taxpayer needs to claim additional dependents or remove dependents that were previously claimed. For example, a couple may have included a baby born in January before taxes were filed in April on the prior year’s tax return. That baby cannot be included on the previous year’s tax return because they were not born before the end of the year.
• Tax credits and deductions were claimed incorrectly or were not claimed. In the latter case, the taxpayer may have realized that they qualified for a credit or deduction and may want to file an amended return to reflect this.
• The income reported for the tax year was incorrect. If a taxpayer receives additional tax documents for the tax year (say a Form 1099 or a K-1 arrives in the mail after the tax deadline), they may file an amended tax return to report the additional income.
• Deductibility of certain expenses change as a result of legislation changes. Sometimes, legislation will come through after a taxpayer has filed a return that affects the deductibility of certain expenses. For example, the deduction for private mortgage insurance (PMI) originally expired on Dec. 31, 2017, due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, signed into law in December 2019, extended the deduction through Dec. 31, 2020. This made the deduction available for the 2019 and 2020 tax years and retroactive for the 2018 tax year.
• Tax relief due to a natural disaster changes the taxpayer’s tax liability. This is a common issue for taxpayers who have been affected by a natural disaster, especially one in the later part of the tax year. The government frequently offers tax relief for those affected by natural disasters, but legislation may take longer to finalize than the typical tax season window allows. Taxpayers should pay their full tax liability as it sits when the tax return is due. If legislation changes, an amended return can be filed to reclaim any refund owed to them due to natural disaster tax relief.
• The taxpayer realizes that they owe more taxes than they actually paid. To avoid getting hit with a penalty from the government, they can file an amended return with the IRS.

How to Amend a Tax Return

Form 1040-X has three columns: A, B, and C. Under column A, the figure that was reported in the original or last-amended tax form is recorded. The taxpayer will need to input the adjusted or correct number in column C. The difference between columns A and C is reflected in column B. The adjustments made to a tax return will either result in a tax refund, balance due, or no tax change. The taxpayer also has to explain what changes they are making and the reasons for making each change in a section provided on the back of Form 1040-X.

Disadvantages of an Amended Tax Return

The drawback of filing an amended tax return is that Form 1040-X cannot be submitted electronically for every tax year, although the IRS has recently started accepting e-filed amended returns for tax year 2019. If filling out the form manually, the taxpayer has to mail the printed-out document to the IRS Service Center that processed the original tax form. The IRS manually processes amended returns, and the process can take 16 weeks—or even longer, if the amended return is not signed, is incomplete, has errors, requires additional information, needs clearance by the IRS bankruptcy department, has been routed to another specialized area, or has been affected by identity fraud.

There is, however, a three-year statute of limitations for issuing tax refund checks. Therefore, the taxpayer must file any amended returns that will result in a tax refund within three years after the date they filed the original tax return. An amended return filed to account for additional income or overstated deductions does not fall under any such statute and can be filed at any time.

Download Amended Tax Return Form Here

All current and prior revisions of the IRS Form 1040-X are available on the IRS website here.

What Is Annualization?

To annualize a number means to convert a short-term calculation or rate into an annual rate. Typically, an investment that yields a short-term rate of return is annualized to determine an annual rate of return, which may also include compounding or reinvestment of interest and dividends. It helps to annualize a rate of return to better compare the performance of one security versus another.

Annualization is a similar concept to reporting financial figures on an annual basis.

Understanding Annualization

When a number is annualized, it’s usually for rates of less than one year in duration. If the yield being considered is subject to compounding, annualization will also account for the effects of compounding. Annualizing can be used to determine the financial performance of an asset, security, or company.

When a number is annualized, the short-term performance or result is used to forecast the performance for the next twelve months or one year. Below are a few of the most common examples of when annualizing is utilized.

Company Performance

An annualized return is similar to a run rate, which refers to the financial performance of a company based on current financial information as a predictor of future performance. The run rate functions as an extrapolation of current financial performance and assumes that current conditions will continue.

Loans

The annualized cost of loan products is often expressed as an annual percentage rate (APR). The APR considers every cost associated with the loan, such as interest and origination fees, and converts the total of these costs to an annual rate that is a percentage of the amount borrowed.

Loan rates for short-term borrowings can be annualized as well. Loan products including payday loans and title loans, charge a flat finance fee such as $15 or $20 to borrow a nominal amount for a few weeks to a month. On the surface, the $20 fee for one month doesn’t appear to be exorbitant. However, annualizing the number equates to $240 and could be extremely large relative to the loan amount.

Tax Purposes

Taxpayers annualize by converting a tax period of less than one year into an annual period. The conversion helps wage earners establish an effective tax plan and manage any tax implications.

For example, taxpayers can multiply their monthly income by 12 months to determine their annualized income. Annualizing income can help taxpayers estimate their effective tax rate based on the calculation and can be helpful in budgeting their quarterly taxes.

Example: Investments

Investments are annualized frequently. Let’s say a stock returned 1% in one month in capital gains on a simple (not compounding) basis. The annualized rate of return would be equal to 12% because there are 12 months in one year. In other words, you multiply the shorter-term rate of return by the number of periods that make up one year. A monthly return would be multiplied by 12 months.

However, let’s say an investment returned 1% in one week. To annualize the return, we’d multiply the 1% by the number of weeks in one year or 52 weeks. The annualized return would be 52%.

Quarterly rates of return are often annualized for comparative purposes. A stock or bond might return 5% in Q1. We could annualize the return by multiplying 5% by the number of periods or quarters in a year. The investment would have an annualized return of 20% because there are four quarters in one year or (5% * 4 = 20%).

Special Considerations and Limitations of Annualizing

The annualized rate of return or forecast is not guaranteed and can change due to outside factors and market conditions. Consider an investment that returns 1% in one month; the security would return 12% on an annualized basis. However, the annualized return of a stock cannot be forecasted with a high degree of certainty using the stock’s short-term performance.

There are many factors that could impact a stock’s price throughout the year such as market volatility, the company’s financial performance, and macroeconomic conditions. As a result, fluctuations in the stock price would make the original annualized forecast incorrect. For example, a stock might return 1% in month one and return -3% the following month.

What Is an Ad Valorem Tax?

An ad valorem tax is a tax based on the assessed value of an item, such as real estate or personal property. The most common ad valorem taxes are property taxes levied on real estate. However, ad valorem taxes may also extend to a number of tax applications, such as import duty taxes on goods from abroad.

How Ad Valorem Tax Works

The Latin phrase ad valorem means “according to value.” All ad valorem taxes are levied based on the determined value of the item being taxed. In the most common application of ad valorem taxes, which are municipal property taxes, the real estate of property owners is periodically assessed by a public tax assessor to determine its current value. The assessed value of the property is used to compute a tax annually levied on the property owner by a municipality or other government entity.

Ad valorem taxes, which are based on ownership of a real asset, can be looked at in contrast to transactional taxes, such as sales taxes. While ad valorem taxes are determined and levied annually, transactional taxes are only levied at the time of a transaction.

How Ad Valorem Taxes Are Levied

Property ad valorem taxes are usually levied by a municipality but may also be levied by other local government entities, such as counties, school districts, or special taxing districts, also known as special purpose districts. Property owners may be subject to ad valorem taxes levied by more than one entity; for example, both a municipality and a county.

Ad valorem property taxes are typically a major, if not the major, revenue source for both state and municipal governments, and municipal property ad valorem taxes are commonly referred to as simply “property taxes.”

Determining Tax Values

Tax assessments for the purpose of determining ad valorem taxes are typically calculated as of January 1 each year. Ad valorem taxes represent a percentage of the assessed property value, which is commonly the property’s fair market value. Fair market value is the estimated sales price of the property, assuming a transaction between a willing buyer and a willing seller who both have reasonable knowledge of all pertinent facts about the property, and in a situation where neither party has a compulsion to complete the transaction. Fair market value can be more simply understood as just a reasonable price.

Property Subject to Ad Valorem Taxes

Ad valorem taxes are generally levied on both real property and personal property. Real property includes land, buildings and other structures, and any improvements to the property. An example of an improvement is a garage added to a single-family home or a road built on a parcel of land. Personal property ad valorem taxes are most commonly levied only on major personal property holdings, such as a car or boat. Incidental personal property, such as household appliances or clothing, is not usually subject to personal property taxes.