Over on the Estate Planning board, a poster has asked about a charitable remainder trust (CRT) to reduce taxes from the proposed sale of a major asset, presumably farm land. Someone pointed out that capital gains rates are low (but may be raised soon). Someone else noted that large capital gains might trigger the AMT.

I did calculations with Tax Cut showing that at least in my case, the AMT would be triggered with an additional $60K of capital gains.

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=26549226

But even then the tax was quite small and in no case did the tax rate on the gain exceed 18.3%.

This wandered into a discussion of if you think capital gains will be raised to 28% next year, is it worth cashing in those long term paper gains and paying 15% this year. That part seemed to be disputed.

Congress seems determined to do something about the AMT. But then who is at risk of getting caught. A few more trials with Tax Cut gave no AMT with an additional $1MM in wages, interest, dividends, tax free interest, treasury bond interest, dividends, or tax exempt dividends.

Tax Cut information says AMT can show up with deductions for real estate taxes, state & local income taxes, or dependents. In my case, the AMT showed up with $24K in property tax deductions, or $21K in state income tax, or 6 additional dependents. For all of these minimum numbers the AMT was less than $500. Not a very big deal.

Looks like the AMT discussion is mostly for fat cats. It is rarely a problem for individuals.