curiousgeorge408> I can imagine it will take more than 3 years to work off the curiousgeorge408> carryover; and that assumes that it does not grow in 2009.
I have a related question/observation. Presume a taxpayer has a large AMT-only deferred capital loss, and an AMT credit (think ISO exercise-and-hold, pay tax, see stock plummet, sell shares in later tax year).
Given the provisions for tax years 2008 & 2009 that accelerate the return of AMT credit from ISOs, all of the remaining ISO-generated AMT credit is returned to taxpayer in tax year 2009, but only a small part of the deferred capital loss is used up.
That means the AMT loss will outlive AMT credits by many tax years. Are there benefits to having such a loss on the books, when there's no AMT credit to be gained? Are there situations where the deferred losses can reduce AMTI and keep taxpayer out of AMT in years when otherwise he'd be paying it?