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Comment by helper | Hacker News Reader

AMT and the 90 day limit on exercising after leaving a company are the main things that make options painful. There has been some movement in the industry to get away from the 90 day limit (by converting from ISOs to NSOs), but has there been any recent attempts to get the AMT rules changed for ISOs? Does anyone think the current AMT rules for stock options are fair? I'm curious how this is viewed by people outside the industry.

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Supposedly getting rid of AMT is one of trumps campaign promises: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/taxes/010417/can-trump-...

Most people think AMT is a badly thought out disaster, but it brings in too much tax revenue and effects the upper middle class, so there isn't much sympathy / political capital for it. AMT also ignores state income tax deductions, which is pretty screwed up!

There was an effort last year to pass a bill to fix the AMT horror show with regards to options last year.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5719

I think ironically to the bubble many of us live in the Silicon Valley, this was proposed by a Republican and passed in the House. Never made it in the Senate. A refreshing reminder good ideas still come from all slices of our political spectrum.

Everyone hates the AMT; very roughly Democrats think it's a broken tool for addressing a real problem, and Republicans see the problem it addresses as a good thing.

I'm curious how ISOs can be abused without the existence of AMT (which gets at the same question from a different angle). Maybe for executive compensation?

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