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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChanceIs who wrote (77969)	1/15/2007 5:04:54 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Respond to of 206180

I am not saying that you are wrong. believe me, i wish i was wrong. it would save me 20 or 30K. but i estimate my taxes in Quicken, and Quicken automatically runs the AMT calcs. according to those calcs, i am caught by the AMT. after learning this i checked on the web and indeed one of the ways to get caught by AMT is to take a lot of LTCG. i had not been aware of this, thinking erroneously that the 15% LTCG was ironclad. this probably doesn't apply to most taxpayers, who get caught by things like state income tax deductions. but it is very relevant for people who make their money off investments. i still have no idea how much LTCG one can take at the 15% rate before AMT kicks in. i guess i would have had to run different simulations in Quicken to find out. this is very much groping around in the dark. so i paid my estimates based on Quicken, but ultimately my accountant will determine what the actual payment should be when i file my return. however, my accountant is also just using some program that runs calculations just like Quicken, so i am not optimistic. I read somewhere that the cost of compliance with the tax code represents about 20% of every dollar collected. i wish i only had to pay the IRS four or five times what i pay my accountant!