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Respondent contends that the above query must be answered in
the affirmative. In so arguing, respondent relies on the
characterization of ATNOLs by legislative history and caselaw as
originating in a regime parallel to the regular tax system.
Besides the passage previously quoted, the conference report
describing the AMT legislation directs: “Minimum tax NOLs are
carried over under a system separate from but parallel to that
applying for regular tax purposes.” H. Conf. Rept. 99-841, supra
at II-282, 1986-3 C.B. (Vol. 4) at 282. Likewise, this Court in
Allen v. Commissioner, 118 T.C. 1, 16-17 (2002), while rejecting
the idea that the entire AMT construct paralleled the regular tax
system, reiterated that “in the case of AMT NOLs, the rules for
those NOLs did and still run parallel.”
The parties in Allen v. Commissioner, supra at 6 n.4, used
“parallel” in the AMT setting “to mean that the regimes run
independently of each other without ever meeting”, such that “a
taxpayer must first apply the provisions of the Code to compute
regular tax and then ‘start from scratch’ to apply those
provisions to compute AMT.” Respondent similarly contends that
to actualize a parallel ATNOL regime here implies ascertaining
how NOLs of life-nonlife groups are computed for regular tax
purposes and applying that methodology within the context of the
AMT provisions. More specifically, respondent maintains that,
because the regulatory mechanism for implementing the loss limits
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