I hate to disagree with Luis, since obviously he's a tax professional and I'm just some dude.. but my regular tax minus my credits is already WAY under my tentative minimum tax.. because my credits are quite large between my PHEV purchase and all of my kids. The requirements for 8911 relate to AMT.. which TT is NOT calculating for me. If the AMT was the difference between (regular tax - credits) and (tentative minimum).. then I'd have an AMT amount due.. and I don't. Because I don't have an AMT amount due, I should be able to take this credit based.
I don't meet either of the two exclusion scenarios:
- If your credit is bigger than what you owe in taxes, the taxes you owe are reduced to zero, and the rest of your credit is lost.
- If you pay alternative minimum tax (AMT) you will not be able to claim this credit. If you are close to paying AMT, this credit may be limited by your tentative minimum tax as calculated on Form 6251, Alternative Minimum Tax - Individuals, line 33.
The second options makes it sound like maybe I'm close to the AMT, but when I look at my AMT worksheet.. my tentative minimum tax would have to be like $6k higher before subtracting my regular tax would result in a positive value.
I believe there's a bug in their logic, and Luis is explaining you the same broken logic. Did you look at your AMT worksheet? Do you have an AMT value? Are you close the an AMT value? I'm not, and I still get $0.
