No one likes to pay any more taxes than they have to. One simple way to avoid this is to get the most from your\u00a0deductions and expenses. This means keeping track of all of your tax deductible expenses throughout the year.\u00a0Once the last-minute rush to gather up all of your receipts begins, expenses are often overlooked that can reduce\u00a0your tax liability.<\/p>\n
Here is one strategy for charitable contributions: each time you make a charitable contribution, obtain a written\u00a0receipt to acknowledge your donation, which should contain the name of the charity, the date, and the amount\u00a0contributed. When donating household goods, such as clothing, you can use a guide, such as the one at\u00a0www.salvationarmyusa.org to determine the value of your donations. Please note that the IRS does not allow a\u00a0deduction for contributions without a proper receipt or a cancelled check (for amounts under $250).<\/p>\n
Keep track of unreimbursed employee expenses. As always, you should keep your receipts for any business\u00a0expenses that you pay out of pocket. These can include tolls, parking, gas, meals and entertainment, dues,\u00a0subscriptions, advertising, and marketing. Additionally, if you use your vehicle for your job, keep track of your\u00a0business and overall mileage. It will be well worth the savings come next tax season.<\/p>\n
One more way to better keep track of expenses is to reconcile your bank statements to your checkbook. This is\u00a0true whether you use QuickBooks, Quicken, or a pencil and paper. By reconciling your checkbook, it insures\u00a0that you are capturing all of your expenses, such as bank fees, or checks that you forgot to record. Both\u00a0businesses and individuals can benefit from reconciling their books.<\/p>\n
Keep all of your receipts in one place or in an envelope \u2013 whatever works best for you. Usually the extra effort\u00a0is worth the hassle, especially because it makes you more conscious of what you are doing with your money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
No one likes to pay any more taxes than they have to. One simple way to avoid this is to get the most from your\u00a0deductions and expenses. This means keeping track of all of your tax deductible expenses throughout the year.\u00a0Once the last-minute rush to gather up all of your receipts begins, expenses are often […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18],"tags":[24,29,53],"class_list":{"0":"post-19","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-expenses","7":"category-taxes","8":"tag-deductions","9":"tag-expenses","10":"tag-tax","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belbolcpa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}