TL;DR Talk to your CPA. Yes, you're absolutely correct. That's a bad job on my part. ISOs have a chance of pushing you into AMT land. If you exercise ISOs, an

TL;DR Talk to your CPA. Yes, you're absolutely correct. That's a bad job on my part. ISOs have a chance of pushing you into AMT land. If you exercise ISOs, and the FMV is different than the exercise price, then you should consult with a CPA to find out if you have a tax liability. When I was in this situation I had a CPA project my taxes for the current year. It turned out that my taxes under the traditional system were more than under AMT, so I didn't have to worry. But this easily could not be the case if the spread is sufficiently large.