AMT Book Overview

The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) was repealed by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 for corporations, effective for tax years beginning January 1, 2018 and later. AMT is still in effect for individuals.

If your business no longer needs to use the AMT book or related ACE book, you can close the books. The existing data in the books will remain and the books can be re-opened if desired. (To close a book, enter No in the Open Book field). If you choose to use the AMT and ACE books for a different purpose and you wish to copy data from another book, the AMT and ACE books can be selected as a destination books for the Copy Book feature.

You can rename the AMT book to a book title that reflects the purpose of the book. The State book title can also be renamed. The book titles that can be customized will be referred to by their original names throughout the Help Topics. The original book name can always be found in parentheses below the book title in the column header on the Book Defaults tab of the New or Edit Company dialogs.

What is AMT depreciation?

The rules for computing depreciation under the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) system differ from those used in computing depreciation for regular federal tax. As part of the Tax Reform Act of 1986, Congress passed legislation designed to ensure that both individual taxpayers and corporations pay at least a certain minimum tax, known as the Alternative Minimum Tax or AMT. The application applies those rules to determine the default information for this book based on the Tax book entries. Generally, you should not change the default entries, as they already comply with AMT rules. The AMT book fiscal year should be the same as the Tax book fiscal year.

If a corporation is exempt from AMT (under the rules prescribed by the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997), it should close the AMT book, as well as the ACE book, for the first year beginning after December 31, 1997. The exemption from AMT may only be temporary (that is, if the corporation grows sufficiently, it may have to start calculating AMT again).

The Alternative Minimum Tax report shows Tax Preferences for ACRS real property and Adjustments for MACRS assets as required under the AMT.