Dear Sirs,

We wanted to know if there was a chance that in 2013 tax year we could have between $200,000 to $1,000,000 in capital gains from sales of securities (held short-term), if there were anything we could do in advance (I already purchased the securities in question in my personal brokerage account this year, but haven't yet sold them) to minimize taxes on the gains, short of selling them in 2014 or later, or do I just have to pay capital gains tax at the maximum rate.

We heard that we might get a lower tax bill if we completed the AMT form, but we are unsure. We file a joint return (My wife and I are in our 40s - 50s and we have 4 children, only 1 of which is still under 17 years old) and my wife and I will have about $57,000 in salary income in 2013.

Please advise whether we should use the regular (or high income) 1040 tax tables with whatever gains figures come from Schedule D or possibly use another method to compute our tax liability to save us more money.

Thanks in advance,
Taxhelp2014