[dcherman]

The AMT calculation is tedious as hell. Considering that the yearly cost for H&R Block is something like 20$, it's well worth the money just to avoid needing to do that by hand, and that's not even taking into account all of the other time savings features of it. And the cost for the software itself is tax deductible as tax prep costs.

[burkaman]

AMT only really affects people who make like $200,000+, right? It's a reasonable point, but I think it only applies to 5% or so of taxpayers.

[dcherman]

Nope! You'd be surprised who it might affect. Families with a few kids (lots of tax credits rather than deductions) that own their own home and have a decent salary could potentially owe the AMT.

If you make more than the exemption amount for your category (between 40-85K or so depending on your situation and tax year), then you should be calculating the AMT to determine whether or not you owe. It affects more people than you might think, even if it just requires the calculation to occur to see if you owe it or not.