The IRS confirmed that AMT credit refunds under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will not be subject to reduction under sequestration in an announcement on the IRS website (Effect of Sequestration on the Alternative Minimum Tax Credit for Corporations (fiscal year 2019)).  However, claims for years beginning before January 1, 2018 by taxpayers making an election under IRC §168(k)(4) will be subject to a 6.2% sequestration reduction for claims processed on or after October 1, 2018 and on or before September 30, 2019.

Should a surviving spouse be able to make use of an unused credit carryforward of her former spouse?  That question was posed in the case of Vichich v. Commissioner, 146 TC No. 12—and, as the Court noted, this wasn’t a question the Court had considered before.

The credit in this was the minimum tax credit under §53.  The minimum tax credit generally relates to a minimum tax paid in a prior year that is related to differences between the regular tax and the alternative minimum tax (AMT) that will reverse in later.  In this case William Vichich has exercised incentive stock options (ISOs) granted to him by his employer in 1998.