It seems a lot of people I know at work are all subject to AMT taxes! The question is, if one plans well, can the AMT tax be avoided or postponed into future tax years?

hard to do. One area you may have control over is if you can defer a large capital gain into the following year. As tax guru mentioned earlier, it's the normal deductions that cause the AMT in the first place, like exemptions and itemized deductions, especially the deduction for state income taxes. If you know you're gonna be in the AMT, then you may want to take advantage of it's lower tax by moving income into that year if possible, and not wasting certain deductions, like paying your property taxes early in an AMT year. The first 175k of AMTI is taxed at 26%