Planning Pointer
The Good News for Charitable Gifts Under the Alternative Minimum Tax
Posted April 2008
An alternate tax system designed originally to ensnare very wealthy taxpayers who had adroitly and legally managed to avoid income tax by utilizing tax loopholes, the alternative minimum tax (AMT), which is not indexed for inflation, now affects millions upon millions of unintended and unsuspecting taxpayers. Millions more would have been affected but for a last-minute 2007 Congressional reprieve that released them from the clutches of the AMT by extending the 2006 legislation that increased the amount exempt from the tax. But who knows what's in store for the future.
Many taxpayers and some professionals harbor the erroneous belief that charitable gifts can exacerbate one's AMT predicament. Nothing could be further from the truth: Charitable gifts that are deductible for regular income-tax purposes are also fully deductible for AMT purposes including the avoidance of capital gain on gifts of appreciated property.
As a matter of fact, a sale of appreciated property where the gain could throw you into the AMT system can be avoided by making a charitable gift of the property: No sale means no income to trigger the AMT.
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