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Categories: Taxes
Tags: deductions, interest, Taxes, turbotax
We’re coming to the end of tax time once again… and for those of us who do our own taxes that means zeroing in on every tax deduction possible. At this point in my life I don’t have many out of the ordinary deductions, which makes filing easier from year to year.
The tax deductions I frequently claim include:
In fact, these four main deductions account for 97% of all our deductions combined! That said, regardless of the amounts every deduction is important, worth finding, and worth using.
In the spirit of hunting for every possible deduction I wanted to bring to your attention an awesome article resource I found while poking around on the TurboTax website entitled ‘The 10 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions.’
Use this brief list to get ideas and follow the links to read about each one in greater detail.
Some of these are deductions while some are actually credits. Some can be quite substantial while others tend to be small. Regardless of the size or type… if you can reduce the amount of tax you owe then you would be a fool not to do so. Hopefully this article will help a few DFA readers keep more of their hard earned money where it belongs… in their own pockets!
Before reading these tips I had forgotten about a donation of cash and mileage to the Salvation Army – topic #3 above helped remind me to claim it!
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Matt,
I don’t know how many military readers you have, but some state / counties offer tax exemptions for military members who were deployed last year. I haven’t been able to find a consolidated list of all areas that offer this, but anyone who is a home owner and deployed may want to look into this.
Kita
Thanks Lakita!
You should set up a Paypal account on your blog for people to “Buy Matt a coffee for all the help he gives me”
Charge em like 3$ and use the money to go towards debt.
* Of course I get a 10 percent commission as it is my idea.
Thanks for this. I didn’t know you could deduct mortgage points.
I found the list very useful and am glad to provide it here.
We use a CPA, but I love lists like this so I can see if she found all the deductions possible (so far, she’s golden). Thanks for the list!
holly – points on purchase are fully deductible. Points on the refi are taken over the life of the loan. If the loan is paid off early, and you are good with your records, you take the remaining amount in the year that loan is paid off, whether it’s due to a sale or another refinance.
Joe
As always Joe, thanks for your knowing, and sharing the details.
I must admit my laziness led me to claim no tax breaks on my last taxes… I fully intend to do everything I can next year!
#6.Property tax deduction for non-itemizers is a big one. Those with a mortgage, but opt to take the standard deduction rather than itemize the mortage interest deduction, often forget that you can still deduct property taxes. Too bad it probably goes away in tax year 2010.
Nice list and always helpful this time of year. It’s not something we tend to think about until now. Our blog just listed much of the same, but we also included links directly to the IRS site where each topic is discussed in case you’d like to read the info first hand.
Hi Matt, I was surprised to see state income taxes as not on the list of the top 4 – that’s really surprising! I would have expected these taxes to outperform charitable deductions, since I understand the average giving in the U.S. is between 1-2%, whereas I think the average state income tax is much higher.
Hey Fred, yeah state income taxes are definitely something we should not forget to file, but I do not think they are commonly missed… do you?
Another point to mention in regards to mortgage deduction is the deduction for mortgage insurance premiums or MIP. Currently, I believe up untill 2012 you can deduct the mortgage insurance on your loan if you purchased or refinanced in or after 2009.
Great post, thanks for the reminders!
Charity is key, especially when it comes to gas mileage. Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks for the insightful article. I only wish Jury pay was more than the few dollars/day the state gives… that often times employer would want reimbursed to them.
Would like to hear more on this one (property tax deduction for non-itemizers) — I thought it was gone for 2010. Any tax expert able to confirm?
Yes, not available for 2010 returns. I thought as much, but confirmed with the experts at TurboTax.
Thanks gents… I updated the post accordingly. God bless.
I just posted a blog about taxes, I mentioned that the education credits are missed frequently.
I know most people don’t forget medical expenses. But what they DO forget is that mileage to & from hosptals, pharmacies, doctors, ect. is also deductible.
If you don’t have an accurate measure, an educated guess will work ok.
can you deduct any of these if you don’t itemize? and if you’re a renter, is there an advantage to itemizing? I donate a lot but I think the standard is like $5500, and I don’t donate that much!
Hi Kathleen, it all depends on your situation but you should definitely run the numbers to see if itemizing is beneficial or not.