Best "Tax Year" Ever?
In honor of tax day, we thought we’d share with you our club members’ musings on this year’s tax process…
Those donations to thrift stores really add up to significant deductions (if you itemize). Helpful hints to track your in-kind donations:
- Request and keep your donation receipts.
- Goodwill has an item-value calculator online.
- Make a list, or better yet, take a photo of all the items you’re donating.
Create a tax folder and put everything pertaining to taxes in it throughout the year — donation receipts, W-2′s, investment statements, any questions you might have — so that when you’re finally ready to do taxes, it’s all in one lace.
Consider an accountant. After paying for Turbo Tax, how much more is an accountant? How much time does using an accountant save? Half our club members used Turbo Tax, the other half used accounting services for $150-$250. After our discussion, an accountant was looking more and more attractive.
As with any tax discussion, we were left with more questions than answers. Later on in the year, we’re planning to host an accountant as a speaker. Some of our questions we plan to pose:
- What are the benefits to filing separately vs jointly?
- When should we take the standard deduction vs. itemize?
- Naturally, the goal with taxes is to get to as little refund or payment as possible. How do we work through our exemptions to get to this point?
Lastly, we discussed that if you have a tax refund, should you have a plan for it and what should it be? More and more ads are popping up pushing their products and services for your refund dollars — how do you avoid the distraction? Conversely, if you do change your W-4 to tweak your exemptions to pocket more of your money throughout the year, are you actually saving those dollars and doing something with it?
Do you have any helpful tips from doing your taxes this year? What are some of your tax questions?
