# Question on AMT version of Form 1116



## submarine66 (Feb 1, 2021)

Hello All,

I am new to the forum and am excited to see the wealth of information available in the forum!

I had moved from the US and lived in India for many years and had used a tax firm to file my US tax returns. I had situations of them using all kinds of forms including foreign earned income exclusion, foreign tax credits, AMT calculations and what not! I was in a high income bracket for many of those years and did not learn much from their extended use of these forms!

I have since returned back to the US and am now retired (at age 55). I continued to use the tax firm for the last two years, but they are expensive at my now income levels!! So I am trying to do my returns myself for 2020. 

I presumed the returns should be simple now, but have been rudely surprised! I am much below AMT limits. I do see the need to use Form 1116 since I have to claim foreign tax credit (>$600 for MFJ). But I am lost on whether I need to file the AMT version of the form. I qualify for the free version of Taxact, and have inputted all my data into it (including prior year carry over for both 1116 and 1116 AMT). When I try to print my returns, all forms are getting generated to my satisfaction, however, Taxact is NOT generating Form 1116 AMT in my return! I am confused since even last year my tax firm had included a Form 1116 and a Form 1116AMT in my return!

I seek any help from forum members who have experienced this situation. Please ask me for clarification should my rambling above not provide sufficient information.

best
Submarine


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## Moulard (Feb 3, 2017)

I used to use the download version of taxact (until they stopped supporting those without a US credit card or mailing address), and I seem to recall there is a checkbox that you can select to print certain forms even if they are not required - I would assume that the online free version would be similar...

That said...

If you qualify for the free version then your income is likely going to be low enough that the AMT is not an issue.

But... for the sake of completeness.. from first principles so you can check through your return manually..

Anyone who files Form 1116 is required to complete Form 6251 - but not necessarily submit it.

Complete Parts 1 and 2 of Form 6251

Chances are high that line 7 will be zero. If it is, you don't need to submit Form 6251 and you don't need an AMT Version of Form 1116.

If you have excess tax credits you are carrying over in the AMT version from prior years you may still want to attach your carryover table for AMT.

Edit.. While I hold a grudge against TaxAct for the reasons above, I did find that their helpdesk was quite responsive, the Q&A Implementation for Form 1116 requires a decent level of understanding on how it all hangs together - meaning it is really easy to accidentally put a value in a wrong field because the way AMT works means you kinda have to run three forms in parallel.


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## submarine66 (Feb 1, 2021)

Thank You for a very detailed and helpful response!

I did go back into Taxact and checked my generated Form 6251, Parts 1 and 2 are filled in and line 7 is ZERO. So sounds like I don't need to submit Form 6251 as well as 1116 AMT! 

Also Taxact did generate my carry over table for AMT as well. In a nutshell, I think the free filing version of Taxact works well for me! And I will use it to file my returns.

Best regards


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## Moulard (Feb 3, 2017)

Great news.


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