AMT Recovery Mission: Stop It Recurring, Get the Refund
Clients paid AMT and were told they'd get it back. Many didn't. Learn the two-phase mission and around a dozen worked strategies to recover a carryforward as an actual refund.
Your Clients Paid AMT and Were Told They'd Get It Back. They Didn't. Here's the Mission to Recover It.
The 2024 AMT changes hit hard. Many clients paid substantial AMT and were reassured it would come back over the next seven years. Then 2025 arrived, and there was no recovery, or a tiny one, and in many cases the AMT got worse. The same client profile that triggered it once triggers it again. Left on autopilot, the seven-year carryforward runs out and AMT quietly becomes a permanent tax increase. This session is the recovery mission: a two-phase, worked-example approach to stop AMT recurring and to turn a carryforward into an actual refund cheque for your client.
There is no prize in recovering AMT by increasing regular tax. The sweet spot is the overlap: strategies that pull AMT below regular tax without unduly raising regular tax and without pushing AMT into next year. This seminar lives in that overlap, with around a dozen worked recovery strategies drawn straight from real files.
- check_circle A two-phase mission, not a formula. Phase one: implement a strategy so AMT does not recur. Phase two: recover the AMT already paid. First diagnose whether AMT was a one-off event or intrinsic to the client profile, then match the recovery approach to the cause.
- check_circle Recovery is the lesser of two numbers. Regular tax minus AMT, or the AMT carryforward. No carryforward, no refund. The session shows exactly how to engineer the gap so the difference is large and repeats year after year until the carryforward is exhausted.
- check_circle Around a dozen worked strategies, alphabet in reverse. From Zoltan back through Vernon and Verity, Ula and Uri, Stephen, Oliver, Norman and Mitchell, each example isolates a lever: multiplying the AMT exemption, shifting the income mix, incorporating a portfolio, switching dividends to salary, or spousal loans that split income without attribution.
- check_circle Time-sensitive and one-time opportunities. A 2026-only capital-loss carryback to a pre-2024 gain year, the seven-year expiry countdown, AMT in the year of death, and departures and non-residents where recovery may be impossible. Some of these windows close this year.
What You'll Learn
The session moves from understanding why AMT recurs, through the clusters that cause it, into the bulk of the program: recovery strategies, worked example by worked example, plus the hard cases where recovery is limited or lost.
expand_more Why AMT Is Growing, Not Shrinking
- Why the 2024 reforms produced AMT that recurs: a broadened base, a rate lifted to 20.5%, and personal credits cut to 50%, so AMT taxable income can run far above regular taxable income
- The stealth capital gains increase: 20.5% AMT is 4% above the 16.5% federal rate on a capital gain, and 5% to 6% once provincial AMT tags along in every province except Quebec
- The two overlapping circles of regular planning and AMT planning, and why the only moves worth making sit in the overlap
- Diagnosing the cause first: is AMT a one-off event or intrinsic to the client profile, and what that means for how aggressive the fix has to be
expand_more Regular Tax vs. AMT, Line by Line
- The full comparison table: tax shelters, rental interest, interest expense, investment counsel fees, taxable dividends, moving and childcare and employment expenses, and how each is treated for regular tax versus AMT
- Capital gains at 100% inclusion for AMT, capital losses effectively 50%, the capital gains exemption at 30% inclusion, donated public stock at 30%, and the stock option deduction reduced to nil
- Rate, DTC, FTC, personal exemptions and the donation credit rate under each system, all federal
- The Zoltan example: how a $400,000 economic gain becomes a $1.2 million inclusion for AMT once the gain, the loss carryforward and the fees collide, and why matching gains and losses in the same year matters so much
expand_more The Four (or Five) Clusters That Cause AMT
- Cluster 1: large capital gains, net capital loss claims, interest and investment counsel fees, worst when combined
- Cluster 2: tax shelters financed with deductible interest, the classic route into AMT
- Cluster 3: large stock option deductions, and how big the realization has to be to matter
- Cluster 4: large donations, especially of publicly traded stock, which aggravate AMT only alongside other factors
- The fifth, rarer cluster: large non-capital losses carried forward or back, and the real trust case where tens of millions in losses still triggered AMT
expand_more The Three Recovery Strategies, Worked Through
- Multiply the AMT exemption: income splitting reimagined for AMT. Vernon and Verity, where deliberately not splitting pension income raised annual recovery from $30,000 to $49,000
- Alter the income mix toward non-preference items without inflating regular tax: Stephen and Oliver switching eligible dividends to salary that is deductible to the corporation, and Norman incorporating a portfolio to stop paying AMT entirely
- Realize capital gains in a holding company, not personally: the corporate route on a large gain, splitting it into a tax-free capital dividend, corporate tax paid, and a retained amount
- Ula and Uri: a $4 million spousal loan at a rate above prescribed, no attribution, turning a $4,000 annual recovery into $29,000 with no tax payable, plus the corporate variant raised in Q&A
- Why strategies compound: combining exemption multiplication, income-mix changes and incorporation rather than choosing one
expand_more Strategies That Don't Work, and the Continuum That Explains Why
- Tax moves that backfire: claiming a smaller capital loss, skipping interest or RRSP deductions, or premature RRSP withdrawals, all of which just raise regular tax
- Non-tax moves that backfire: reshaping the portfolio away from capital gains, or refusing to realize gains, letting the tax tail wag the investment dog
- The income continuum: where AMT sits at 20.5%, why capital gains are the one recurring item that causes it, and why regular income (salary, interest, pension, RRIF) recovers AMT far better than eligible dividends
- Realizing gains and losses in the same year to avoid the brutal carryforward and carryback treatment
expand_more The Hard Cases: Death, Departure, Trusts and Expiry
- AMT in the year of death: nil AMT means a carryforward can be recovered fully against regular tax, but only up to the regular tax payable. Norbert declines the spousal rollover to deliberately create a gain and recover $400,000
- Non-residents and part-year departures: a single deemed disposition, no future Canadian income, and why owning Canadian real estate in a corporation may be the only real answer
- Trusts hit hardest of all: no exemption, no salary to create regular income, and three ideas, distribute gains to individuals, to a corporate beneficiary, or deliberately trigger 75(2) reversion
- The seven-year expiry and desperate measures: Mitchell weighing a $2 million RRSP withdrawal to absorb an expiring $262,000 carryforward, and how to decide whether the 36% effective cost is worth it
- Provincial AMT that can be lost on a change of province, and why Quebec sits outside the whole system
Learn Directly from Tax Experts
Michael Cadesky is the managing partner at Cadesky Tax and a committed contributor to the tax and accounting professions since 1980, earning the title of Fellow from CPA Ontario. He is a past governor of the Canadian Tax Foundation, past chair of STEP Canada and STEP Worldwide, and past chair of the CPA Canada Tax Committee for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. Michael is also the co-author of 11 books on tax subjects and the author or co-author of numerous papers and articles on Canadian and international taxation.
Hugh Woolley is an independent tax consultant who has taught income tax for over 30 years for many professional organizations. Hugh has written courses for CPA Canada and over 10 papers for the Canadian Tax Foundation and STEP Canada. From 1990 to 1992 he worked at the CRA's Rulings Directorate in Ottawa writing "butterfly" tax rulings. Hugh is a past Governor of the Canadian Tax Foundation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers about registering for this course.
Can I start right away? expand_more
Yes. AMT – Recovery Mission was recorded live on June 4, 2026 and is available on demand. Register and begin immediately at your own pace.
Does this course provide CPD? expand_more
Yes. You will receive a verifiable CPD certificate for 1.5 hours of instructional learning upon completion.
What is included with registration? expand_more
Registration includes the full seminar recording, slides, and a Knowledge Assessment. You have one year of access to the program and all materials from your date of registration.
Is there a cost to register? expand_more
Yes. Registration is $75 CAD, a one-time payment with no subscription required.