I know that when the AMT gain is smaller than the regular tax gain, the entry on line 18 is negative, I know how to calculate the number, but I don't understand why it's negative. I'm missing something, and I would appreciate being enlightened on this.
I'm hoping that if I can learn this, then I'll also understand why when the AMT gain is larger than the regular gain line 18 is positive.
Thanks.
I think if you exercise incentive stock options then you pay AMT tax and your cost basis of the stocks for AMT purposes is the FMV at the date you exercised. But the cost basis for the regular tax is the option price. At least that's what I gathered from previous discussions. But it seems if you take the AMT credit on form 8801 then you shouldn't be allowed to take the higher cost basis, because it looks like double dipping.
If you have business property used in your Schedule C business and dispose of it, the depreciation is different under the regular tax and AMT. Under AMT you can't do accelerated depreciation. I don't know about section 179 or bonus depreciation. Anyway line 19 of 6251 would have been used to report the excess depreciation. So the gain/loss could be different under regular tax and AMT. Not quite sure of the mechanics of how it works.
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