No Alternative Minimum Tax, IIRC. I must admit that my wife does the taxes each year (typically using TurboTax and Microsoft Money) so I am not completely cognizant of the particulars. Only that when I compare how much money we've paid in taxes (as reported by my employer's records) and the refund we get then the refund has been larger (not usually by much - they can only "steal" from social security tax so much. Wholesale raiding of SS must be done at the congressional level). I don't think I'm going to go through the AMT form to find out why we don't owe AMT - I know Turbo Tax calculates for it. It looks... congulpated (as one of my children might say) I make about $65k* per year - it may be that even under AMT our taxes aren't very high. We donate a little over 10% of our gross income to our church, and we deduct everything we can from medical expenses to car mileage where possible. I do consulting out of the home (outside my day job) which brings in very little profit (just enough that it's not considered a "hobby" by the IRS), but the expenses of the workspace (so many square feet are x% percentage of the home, and thus x% of the heating, cooling, lighting, etc) and such are somewhat deductable. And then once we find out how much taxes we owe, we just reduce that number by $4,000 due to the child credit. I finally got around to updating my W-4 to include more exemptions so we can use the money throughout the year instead of getting a large refund each February. -Adam * I hope no one feels offended or that I'm bragging. I know culturally it's a no-no, and I figure I'll find out why if I share it. It's beyond me why it would bother someone to know my salary. Besides, it means little unless one knows the cost of living, among a great many other variables. I do enjoy looking at salary surveys though... On 1/29/07, William Chops Westfield wrote: > > On Jan 29, 2007, at 8:20 AM, M. Adam Davis wrote: > > > The trick is to have enough deductions and tax-free expenses > > that you don't have to pay income tax. > > > No, the trick is to maximize your after-tax income, not minimize > your taxes. > > All the largest checks I've ever written have been to the IRS or > state tax board. The bigger house came close, I guess. I am NOT > complaining at all, thank you very much. Everyone should be so lucky. > > > we have received a larger refund for federal income tax > > over the last few years than we paid > > > Wow. No AMT? > > BillW > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Moving in southeast Michigan? Buy my house: http://ubasics.com/house/ Interested in electronics? Check out the projects at http://ubasics.com Building your own house? Check out http://ubasics.com/home/ -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist