(This is part 2. Don’t forget to check out part 1, too: Tax Preparation: Get Your Tax Papers Together, Part 1).

Before you start doing your actual taxes, make sure you’ve got everything you need. Even if you decide to use a tax preparer rather than doing them yourself, you’ll still need to do this step.

Today, get together all of the following deduction-related papers, if they apply to you. You might have only one or two of these, or might have many of them.

• records of alimony you paid
• receipts if you paid to move yourself (more than 50 miles) because you had to for work (but the company didn’t reimburse the move)
• receipts for purchase of an electric-powered vehicle, a clean-fuel vehicle, or a gas/electric hybrid, or if you upgraded your vehicle to use clean fuel
• receipts for tuition payments (not including K-12 private school), Form 1098-T, 1098-E
• receipts for mortgage interest paid (Form 1098)
• records of all real estate, vehicle and personal property taxes you paid this year
• records of tax refunds from the previous year that you applied to this year’s taxes
• records of estimated tax payments or payments made with an extension (federal, state or local taxes) that you made during this year
• amount of taxes due and taxes paid on state or local tax returns
• records of cash and noncash (clothes, furniture, toys, etc.) donations you made to non-profit charities this year
• records of child care expenses if you used the child care so you could go to work
• records of medical expenses - but only if you had a large amount, equal to 7% of your income; otherwise, don’t bother
• records of student loan interest you paid this year (subject to certain conditions)
• receipts for contributions to retirement funds, such as IRAs, 401ks, SEP-IRAs, Keoghs, SIMPLEs
• records of losses you incurred because of theft or casualty (flood, fire, burglary, etc.)
• job related expenses that were not reimbursed by your employer
• records of the purchase of or modification into a clean-fuel or hybrid vehicle, or an electric vehicles
• records of expenses you incurred as a teacher
• tax preparation fees (including for programs like TaxCut and TurboTax)
• records of adoption expenses
• records of IRA custodial fees
• records of investment interest expenses (expenses, not interest, which would be in the income section)
• records of business expenses if you run a sole proprietorship

Now you’re ready to begin.

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Find out more about your taxes at http://www.helpwithincometax.com/.
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This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 6:06 pm and is filed under Tax Preparation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.