by KYW's Salil Gutt

By now most of you are familiar with the 800 lb gorilla called the Alternative Minimum Tax. It is expected to maul some 23 million tax payers in 2007. Congress is debating a one year fix of the problem. Here's a quick primer on this beast.

AMT forces all taxpayers to compute income tax two ways.  One with and the other without certain deductions. You pay the higher tax regardless of what your deductions really are.

You could be caught in AMT's net if you have a big family,live in a high tax state, have high medical expenses, exercise stock options or make large gifts to charity of highly appreciated stock among other items.

You can reduce AMT by accelerating income to this year;  postponing the exercise of stock options or deferring deductions to next year. Have your accountant do a tax projection for you right away and recommend some year end tax savings strategies.