It’s tax time! I know it’s weird but I’m a math geek and I love thinking about and working on filing our taxes every year. Mike and I have been using Turbo Tax to file our taxes for more than a decade now, and it’s a really cool and easy program. It asks you all kinds of seemingly crazy questions to make sure you don’t miss any deductions. Our taxes are fairly complicated between investments and freelance jobs and my home office, but we feel confident doing it ourselves with the help of the annually updated Turbo Tax program.
So if you are like us and want to tackle filing your taxes yourselves, here are few commonly overlooked deductions and credits that shouldn’t be missed.
1. Energy saving home improvements. For example, over the holidays my father-in-law helped us install some kind of new door-jam-thingy on our front and back doors. We had pretty substantial gaps that were obviously letting a ton of energy through, and since we pay and arm and a leg for air conditioning, that’s a big deal to us.
2. Start-up business expenses. Even if you haven’t yet fully formed your business, you can deduct expenses towards getting it going, like office equipment and legal paperwork.
3. Job hunting costs. This doesn’t apply to finding your first job, but if you are in between jobs you can deduct travel expenses for interviews, costs for printing and mailing resumes, etc.
4. Travel to and from your volunteer job. You can’t deduct the hours, but you can deduct fourteen cents per mile for driving to and from that soup kitchen you work at. This includes your time serving at your church too!
5. Ingredients for that casserole you made for that church pot-luck. Don’t forget out of pocket expenses like the meat for the lasagna you brought to the missions dinner.
6. State sales tax. This is really only useful for those of us who live in states with no income tax (yeehaw, Texas!)
7. Stuff dropped off at Goodwill. Don’t forget to make a list of what you’re donating, because programs like Turbo Tax will assign each of these items a value and it can be more of a deduction than you’d guess. When I told my grandmother we use Turbo Tax to do this every year she couldn’t believe it. I was just trying to get her to clean out her closet.
8. Child care credit. Up to $6000. This is huge if you pay someone to watch your kids while you work, even if it’s just for a few hours a week. It’s becoming more and more common for SAHM’s to hire a babysitter a few hours a week so they can spend time on their blogging, freelance writing, or other home based business. Don’t forget to claim that valuable credit!
9. Home office maintenance. The catch is you have to use this room in your home exclusively for business. My company doesn’t pay for me to rent office space, so Turbo Tax allows us to enter the size of the room and deduct that percentage of all our house expenses…utilities, mortgage, cleaning and pest control to name a few.
10. Dry cleaning for a business trip. Yes, seriously. This is if you travel a lot and wear business-y clothes, like I used to. You have to keep your receipts and there are minimums and limits but it’s worth looking at.
Believe it or not, this post is NOT sponsored by Turbo Tax or anyone else. That’s just how much I love the product. But be on the lookout, because another post on family budgeting this week WILL be sponsored by them…because they are awesome.
Wonderful great tips. I am often left scratching my head when I hear about people NOT deducting some of these types of things. And I scratch my head even more when others make you feel like you are cheating someone by some of the deductions taken. The only ones being cheated is ourselves if we are not looking more closely at what can be deducted!
Wonderful great tips. I am often left scratching my head when I hear about people NOT deducting some of these types of things. And I scratch my head even more when others make you feel like you are cheating someone by some of the deductions taken. The only ones being cheated is ourselves if we are not looking more closely at what can be deducted!
These are so great! Saving money and the world đ
Great point about feeling like we are cheating. It’s the most ridiculous thing to me, because the government are the ones consistently taking more than they are owed from people simply because people don’t know any better. They set up the confusing tax laws, I just take the time to try to understand them.
Saving money AND the world…one of my life mottoes đ
Wow! I didnt realize there were that many deductions that you can claim. I am gonna have to show this one to my husband!
Thanks for visiting my site đ
oh there are many many more…these are just a few that matter to me!
Great post! I wish I were looking forward to it, but atleast my engineer husband is. I love turbo tax too, it makes it so much easier and fool proof!
Thanks Nicki! Yeah it’s the engineer in me for sure đ
Since my husband is a CPA, I have to toss my two cents in here. These are terrific tips. But remember, often times it is worth the cost to hire a CPA to do your taxes. A good one can save you money in the long run. My husband is constantly saying that he saved a client more money than it cost them to have him do it and they can rest peacefully knowing it was done right. Just a thought. đ Lisa~
I totally get that and for a lot of people, a CPA is WELL worth the cost. Especially if you really hate doing your taxes or have businesses or investments. My grandfather has a CPA who is definitely worth the cost, but for me…it’s too much fun. Turbo Tax makes it pretty hard to miss things.
Wonderful great tips. I am often left scratching my head when I hear about people NOT deducting some of these types of things. And I scratch my head even more when others make you feel like you are cheating someone by some of the deductions taken. The only ones being cheated is ourselves if we are not looking more closely at what can be deducted!