US-centric: Yahoo Finance posts a list of common-but-easily-missed tax deductions that stems from an interview with the head of the IRS, who said that he imagined millions of people were over-paying each year because they didn’t factor these 13 items into their returns. Some are the kind that most any accountant or tax prep software will remind you of, but then there are “What the …” items like this: Jury pay paid to employer. Some employers continue to pay employees’ full salary while they are doing their civic duty but ask that they turn over their jury fees to the corporate treasury. The only problem is that the IRS demands that you report those fees as taxable income. You’ve always had a right to deduct the amount, so you weren’t taxed on money that simply passed through your hands. But now tax forms include a line dedicated to this deduction.
Definitely worth a glance, or a print-out to keep for when you get around to that yearly burden. For more tax-timely advice, make a recalculation of your paycheck deductions. The 13 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions [Yahoo Finance via Get Rich Slowlly]
How many years’ worth of financial documents do you have stored in your closet? Perhaps you’re storing way too much. Perhaps you don’t have nearly enough. Kiplinger has a timely article that recommends that should keep your tax returns forever. However, you don’t need to be a packrat. Supporting documents, such as old receipts, can be tossed. Home improvement documents should be kept for as long as you own your house. And if you’re investing, you only need to hold onto monthly statements after your year-end statements arrive as long as everything matches up. We touched upon financial document storage advice before, but it’s the perfect time of year to start going through old papers especially as newer documents accumulate.
How long do you store your documents, and how do you decide which to toss? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments.
Which Tax Records to Keep [Kiplinger]Tomorrow’s your last chance to donate to charity in 2007, and if you don’t know where to find the charities that are doing the best job for the cause you care about, check out independent evaluator Charity Navigator. Charity Navigator rates organisations based on their efficiency and capacity, and categorises them by cause. If you’re looking to be a smart donor this holiday season (and get a sweet tax write off), Charity Navigator’s got quite a few resources of interest, like the Top 10 Practices of Savvy Donors and 6 Questions To Ask Charities Before Donating. How did you decide what charity to support this year? Let us know in the comments.
Highest and Lowest-Rated Charities [Charity Navigator]December is upon us, which means it’s time to start getting 2007 tax paperwork in order. This year I tried out a very high-tech organisation system for deductible receipts (pictured.) Instead of just dropping an enormous pile of differently-shaped scraps of paper into a single folder, I broke them up into labelled envelopes, which is ok, but there’s still room for improvement. What about you? How do you keep records of your charitable contributions, misc income and other work expenses to get all your write-offs? Let us know in the comments. (For more December money tasks, check out our year-end to-do list.)
Work productivity site Web Worker Daily has an interesting article on the bare bones of tracking your business expenses (especially timely as tax season—believe it or not— is right around the corner). Here’s the bottom line: The basic rule of thumb is that to be deductible on your taxes in the United States, an expense must be ordinary (common and accepted in your industry) and necessary (helpful and appropriate for your trade). Note that “necessary” doesn’t mean “indispensable” to the IRS.
I must confess that I’m not as organised as I’d like to be with this, but that’s where you come in, dear readers. How do you track your business expenses? Please share in the comments. Tracking Business Expenses [Web Worker Daily]
