Finance Tax Time

When preparing your taxes, the goal is obviously to deduct every last penny you can. Many people are amazingly good at it. Just keep in mind you need receipts for the deductions.

List of Tax Records To Keep

Filling out and filing tax returns is really a quest to conquer the mountain. In this case, the mountain is your gross income. The IRS helpfully lets you know this by making you write it down right away and repeat it in various places on your 1040 form. How nice of them.

To conquer the mountain, you start shaving it down by claiming deductions. The more you can claim, the better off you are. Some people have lots of deductions that help in this regard. Others create lots of interesting deductions to do the same. Whatever you approach, keep in mind you need receipts to support those deductions should the IRS ask to see proof. Here is a list of common tax records you need to keep to support those deductions.

1. Mortgage Interest Payments. One of the great things about owning a home is the mortgage. Oh, wait. The great thing is the mortgage interest deduction, not the mortgage. To prove the amount you have been paying the piper, you should keep the form 1098 you receive from your lender each year. Given the fact the deduction is usually sizeable, make sure to keep it in a safe place.

2. Dependent Support. If you claim someone as a dependent, you may be in for a surprise. You need to be able to prove that you provide more than 50 percent of the support for that person. Happily married parents usually do not have problems, but the IRS likes to zing divorced parents on this issue. Keep records in the forms of receipts, checks and invoices in such a situation.

3. Home Repair Receipts. No, you do not have to show the receipts each year. The issue really comes up when you decide to sell your home. To cut your tax bill, you should claim all repairs and improvements you made since owning the home. Guess what, you need receipts to support those claims. In simple terms, save every receipt related to your home or risk losing the deductions.

4. Medical Expenses. Health care costs are out of control as we all know. If you are claiming deductions related to medical care, keep those receipts and bills.

Obviously, there are other areas where you need to keep receipts, but these are some of the more common places where people fall down on the job. In general, you should keep all the receipts for three years, but I suggest doubling that number. With home repair or improvement expenses, you need to keep them for five years after you get around to selling your home.

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If you paid someone to care for a child so you could work, you may be able claim a tax credit for child and dependent care expenses on your federal income tax return. This credit is available to people who, in order to work or to look for work, have to pay for child care services for dependents under age 13.

The credit is a percentage, based on your adjusted gross income, of the amount of work-related child and dependent care expenses you paid to a care provider. The credit can range from 20 to 35 percent of your qualifying expenses, depending upon your income.

For 2004, you may use up to $3,000 of the expenses paid in a year for one child or $6,000 for two or more children. These dollar limits must be reduced by the amount of any dependent care benefits provided by your employer that you exclude from your income.

To claim the credit for child and dependent care expenses, you must meet the following conditions:

1. You must have earned income from wages, salaries, tips or other taxable employee compensation, or net earnings from self-employment. If you are married, both you and your spouse must have earned income, unless one spouse was either a full-time student or was physically or mentally incapable of self-care.

2. The payments for care cannot be paid to someone you can claim as a dependent or to your child who is under age 19.

3. Your filing status must be single, head of household, qualifying widow(er) with a dependent child, or married filing jointly.

4. The care must have been provided for one or more qualifying persons identified on the form you use to claim the credit.

5. Your children must reside with you.

What is a “qualifying” child? The child must have been under age 13 when care was provided and you must be able to claim the child as an exemption on your tax return. A spouse who is mentally or physically unable to care for himself or herself also qualifies.

You should read IRS publication 503 or speak with a tax professional to learn more. Still, it is nice to know you can write off those swimming lessons.

Richard Chapo is CEO of Business Tax Recovery - Obtaining tax refunds for small businesses for overpaid taxes. Discovery tax strategies and deductions in our tax articles section.

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Recent statistics show Americans are simply not saving money for the future. To encourage savings, the government has come up with tax incentives.

Tax Incentives for Saving for Education

Higher education in America is an expensive proposition. If you have a child in college, I hardly need to tell you this. While every parent is proud of a child pursuing education, the glorious event can make for some sleepless night when thinking about how to pay for it. If you have young children, the government has taken steps to make saving for college attractive from a tax perspective.

There are a number of different tax incentives to promote saving for education. One such program is known as the Coverdell.

A Coverdell account is designed to promote education savings by removing part of the tax penalty of doing so. The basic idea is that any money distributed from the account will not be taxed so long as distributions don’t exceed the expenses of pursuing education. Here is how it works.

An account is set up for a beneficiary - the child. You can open one account per child and contribute up to $2,000 a year. The beneficiary must be under 18. Obviously, this is a long-term strategy since contribution amounts are limited. Nonetheless, here are some key things to understand:

1. Distributions are not taxed, but must be used for education costs such as tuition, books and so on.

2. The school can be public, private or religious and the money can be used as early as elementary school, to wit, this particular platform is not just for college.

3. You can use this strategy in addition to the hope and lifetime learning strategies, i.e., they don’t cancel each other out.

4. If distributions do not go to education expenses or are more than said costs, the beneficiary is taxed like income tax and a ten percent penalty is added.

5. If the beneficiary completes school or does not go, the account may be rolled over to another family member.

All and all, the Coverdell plan is definitely a long-term strategy. Start one now for your young child, however, and you will be happy you did when the tuition bills start arriving.

Richard A. Chapo is with BusinessTaxRecovery.com - providing information on tax and taxes. Visit us to read more tax articles and our new tax credits page.

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