All of us as taxpayers continually think we have a lot of expenses that we can itemize and deduct to help reduce our respective tax bills. But they come, they go, all for naught and no effect. The problem usually arises from the fact that our costs regularly fall just short of the required income thresholds for some categories of deductions. One solution is “bunching expenses,” which is a term used to describe incurring as many expenses as possible in a particular category during a particular tax year. Of course, doing this in one tax year will usually significantly diminish any chance of repeating it the following year.
What You Need to Know About Deducting State and Local Taxes
Taxpayers that itemize deductions on Schedule A, (and file Form 1040) can deduct the cost of state income taxes on their federal tax return. The ability to deduct the full cost of these taxes has its obvious advantages. Taxpayers may either claim such a deduction from state and local income taxes or state and local sales taxes, but not both. Basically, to be deductible, the tax must be imposed on a taxpayer and must have been paid during the particular tax year. Taxpayers that elect to deduct state and local general sales taxes, may use either their actual expenses or the optional sales tax tables.