Yup, it’s that time of year… You and I working class folks will fund our recently pirated federal government, or at least try to get back a bit of what we overpaid via withholding. Meanwhile, Swashbuckler Trump at the wheel of the Pirate Ship of State laughs at the tax code, having paid no known income taxes for over a decade. And given that Trump has no idea of how to steer said pirated ship of state and has a budget that would be made viable only by piracy, why the hell should we let Trump and his pirates extort even one cent more than legally required from our meager stashes?
Folks, it’s time to search the 1040 for any legal credit, deductable, even loophole we’re entitled too, lest Trump and his pirates put our hard earned $$$ to far worse use than we will! Yup, I said 1040, once used the short forms and paid way more tax than I should have. Tried the “free” online filing, and found my return held for ransom when I used a few extra forms while they missed deductions and credits. So, yes, it’s time to go old school… But if it makes you more comfortable, go ahead and use an online or print short form in parallel while we resort to paper and ink. I compromise and print out the forms while viewing the instructions online, doing a daily draft as I refine the returns and catch any mistakes. We’ve got a bit over five full days before the tuesday midnight deadline, plenty of time to refine our returns until hopefully Trump’s Treasury sends us a check instead of vice versa!
So lay out all the W2s and 1099s and anything else you can imagine, start reading through the 1040 instructions, and by now you’ve printed out some copies of Form 1040 and have your favorite writing implement at hand. My situation is different than many but not unusual, a retiree with pension and IRAs and a small town council member… I saved over a hundred dollars by using an obscure form to cut my capital gains liability and a few more bucks by putting my meager council member salary into an IRA. And being as I’ve been paying out of pocket for travel on city business for trips to the courthouse and dropping off water samples for testing at a lab 90 miles away because the Post Office can’t get them there overnight anymore, I took a mileage deduction for those expenses. A little deduction here, a credit there, and I dropped my tax liability by over a thousand. But “YMMV”… So check out every opportunity that fits your situation, and especially take advantage of the earned income credits and IRAs (you can still make investments for last year) that you’re eligible for. Keep a tab too of what to take advantage of for this tax year… I need to document some deductions better so I can take them next year and deny Trump more of my tax $$$!
Found any good tax tricks to share?