There’s a lot to keep track of when you are getting ready for tax time, and you don’t want to lose out on any tax deductions. For most taxpayers, itemized deductions make up the vast majority of deductions. Understanding what you can and cannot deduct is critical. We find many taxpayers miss critical deductions. We created this worksheet to help make it easy to pull your tax paperwork together. For a downloadable copy click here: Itemized Deduction Worksheet
7 Overlooked Itemized Deductions
- Medical mileage: Did you know you can deduct mileage, tolls and parking for all the doctors and dentist visits as well as trips to the pharmacy or hospital. You need to create a mileage log for the IRS though. We have tools to simplify the tracking for you.
- Charity miles and expenses: Just like medical miles, we find an often overlooked deduction is charitable miles. If you donate time to a charity or church, you might be able to deduct your mileage to and from these events or establishments. Also, taxpayers miss charitable expenses. Did you bake cookies for a charity or church fundraising drive? You can deduct the costs of the cookies. Did you buy cookies for your child’s classroom for an event…deductible.
- Sales tax deduction: Some states don’t have an income tax or you might pay much in state income taxes. You can possibly deduct sales taxes paid in lieu of an income tax deduction. If this sounds confusing, don’t worry. We can help you decipher it.
- Donation of non-cash items: So many taxpayers fail to track for items they donate to Goodwill or similar charities. Or, they don’t accurately deduct the value of the donation. Make sure you itemize the items given as best you can. Then we can figure out the value of the donation.
- Safe deposit boxes: You can deduct this in most cases.
- Financial Planning fees: You may be able to deduct the value of the financial planning costs. This is routinely overlooked by taxpayers.
Tax Preparation Fees: You can deduct the costs of tax preparation fees in many cases. - Gambling losses: You deduct gambling losses up to the amount of gambling winnings. You just need to ensure you are tracking the losses and creating a log for the IRS.