How to Find Federal Deductions for Income Taxes
- 1). Determine your standard deduction from your filing status. Your filing status can include single, married filing jointly, married filing separately, qualifying widow or widower, or head of household. If you are unsure of your filing status, use the Internal Revenue Service's Federal Income Tax booklet for individuals. (See Resources section.) The booklet gives you your standard deduction amount based on your filing status. Note that the standard deduction generally increases annually, so check the IRS website for updates at the beginning of every year.
- 2). Know what your itemized deductions include. Itemized deductions generally include the total amount of payments you made or had withheld from your paycheck in a number of areas (for example, medical payments and taxes).
- 3). Add up your medical payments. The most frequent medical expenses include health insurance; doctors, dentist, or vision doctor's co-payments; physical therapy fees; long-term care insurance; specific alternative therapies; prescription drugs payment; medical equipment; eyeglasses; contact lenses; and mileage for traveling to and from the doctor and pharmacy. Check your paycheck stub or your W2 for your health insurance premium payments.
- 4). Calculate state and local taxes such as state income tax that has been deducted from your paycheck, state unemployment tax, personal property tax and real estate tax. You can get the amount of your real estate taxes for the year from your mortgage statement if you paid your mortgage and real estate taxes to a mortgage lender. If you make your own payments, be sure to stay abreast of the amount.
- 5). Add up the interest you paid on your mortgage loan (for first and second homes) for the year. This also applies to home equity loans---a line of credit you can borrow from while using your home as collateral. If you refinanced your home with a different lender, add both amounts.
- 6). Determine your charitable contributions. Your charitable contributions can be in the form of cash or check, which would include weekly amounts given to churches you attend and/or infrequent amounts given to a registered American charity. If you do not have a receipt, be sure to notate the amounts.
Charitable contributions can also be in the form of gifts such as items given to organizations such as Goodwill. Items include toys, clothes and household goods. You can deduct only the resale value of these items, not the amount you paid for them.
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