Skills Handbook - Simplifying Expressions With Integers - Exercises - Page 975: 7

$4$

Subtraction is simply adding the opposite of the subtrahend, so $-8-(-12)=-8+12$ To add two numbers with different signs, we find the difference between their absolute values, and give the sum the sign of the number with the greater absolute value: $-8+12=(|-12|-|8|)=12-8=4$