Prepare now for next year's income taxes.

Byline: Gene Meyer

KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll be elated, angry, amazed and perhaps even confused.

It's tax planning time, your last chance this year, tax professionals say, to tweak your finances and save potentially hundreds or even thousands of dollars at filing time next year.

The basic goal in many households will be simple, experts say. Pile up as many deductions as possible before Dec. 31, when available tax savings will be greatest, and postpone as much income as possible until 2002, when most tax rates will be lower.

But that old, general rule won't be true for everyone.

Growing numbers of taxpayers with exemptions and deductions potentially big enough to trigger a complex law known as the alternative minimum tax may be better off reporting as much ordinary income as possible to avoid losing a raft of deductions for medical expenses, state and local taxes, slices of home equity loan interest and other things that the alternative minimum tax takes away.

Families with two or more children and taxable incomes between $50,000 and $70,000 stand a good chance of running afoul of alternative minimum tax complications this year or next, according to some calculations.

"Those taxpayers, of course, will want to do just the opposite of those who pay regular income taxes," said Jim Seidel, a senior manager at RIA, a New York tax research and software publisher.

Tax laws aren't the only thing that complicate year-end tax planning this year, said Audrey Stiles, a tax specialist and certified financial planner at Advanced Tax and Accounting, in Blue Springs, Mo. For example:

_Millions of individuals gave generously to help Sept. 11 attack victims this year, which could generate a variety of additional tax calculations to make later.

_Financial markets have taken a beating this year, which means many taxpayers have…