Tax Time

Tax Time

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
People really need to know what's available to them and what kind of tax credits are available to them. It could save us a lot of money. This from Kansas State University extension tax expert Suzy. Now, a quick aside here. The noise that you may hear every once in a while in the background is the county working on the road down next to my house, my tax dollars at work. But anyway, Susie told us the tax laws and rules are always changing. And for many of Us, you know, it's hard to keep up with it. And there are many, many deductions and credits out there for the taking, but not if we don't know about them. There's the obvious ones a lot of times, like the child tax credit, the earned income credit. But sometimes people don't know things about the saver's credit, the dependent care credit and education credit. A lot of people forget if they have like kids in high school that are taking dual credit courses, they forget that those tuition payments that they make, that they can get a tax document to 1980 and then they can file that as education tax credit. So we encourage people to really make sure they know the tax, to make sure they're getting all the tax credits that are available to them. But again, it's not always easy for us to know these things. For example, here's yet another new wrinkle. If you contributed to a charity like a church or a 523, then you can take above the line deductions of three hundred dollars, if not a lot. But every little penny counts. Yes. Susie says there are some catches to this deduction. For example, Giving money to individuals does not count as a charitable deduction, nor are giving donations of food or clothing and those kind of things. It has to be a cash donation. You don't have to itemize your charitable contributions on the tax form. But she advises people to have receipts for those contributions on hand just in case. Hopefully you won't be audited, but we just never know. And I heard the IRS might be doing some spot checking. Oh, so There are all kinds of new federal tax rules and tax breaks, not to mention changes in the laws in various states. And Susie says It's important that you make sure you know what's all available to you and how the tax system can benefit you if It's beyond you like it is me. Susie says go find a good, trustworthy tax preparer to help you out. What you might gain in deductions and credits could be more than what you pay.
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