After doing a little more clicking, I may have answered my question. On the Iowa Minimum Tax screen that was causing me confusion, I switched to Forms view and saw the $3,134 was in Form IA 6251. That amount comes from IA Schedule A and (in my case) is the sum of School District and EMS Surtax, Real estate taxes, and Personal Property Taxes (auto registrations). Since they are all shared with my spouse, I simply allocated 50% (after returning to the Step-by-Step view). That apparently creates a second IA 6251 for my spouse with adjusted allocations of those Schedule A taxes on both my and my spouses IA 6251. I moved on to the following Step-by-Step screens. Those screens reflect special items that could contribute to the Minimum Tax calculation. In my case, they were all shown as $0, and I also allocated $0 to my spouse. TT uses those inputs to complete the two IA 6251s. Bottom line result in my case is that both IA 6251s show $0 Alternative Minimum Tax. I think if a bit more explanation or rewording describing what was being shown and asked for on the initial screen causing the confusion would have been very helpful.
