Tax Preparation Checklist
Tax Preparation Checklist
1. Get Your Forms In Order
- W2 for reporting wages
- 1099 for reporting interest and dividends
- 1099B for reporting stock and bond sales
- 1040 for self-employed/individual income tax return
- If you are filling your taxes late, you will need form 4868 – the application for an automatic extension of time to file a U.S tax return
2. Find Deductions
- Standard deduction, individual taxpayers: $5,800
- Standard deduction, married filling jointly: 11,600
- Retirement/savings contributions (e.g. IRA)
- Student loan interest
- Moving expenses
3. Identify Exemptions
- The personal tax exemption in 20111 is $3,700
- You are allowed to claim one personal exemption for you and one for your spouse, as long as neither of you are claimed as a dependent on someone else’s returns – this is true even if you are the sole income earner in your household
- You are also allowed to claim one exemption for each dependent, even if the dependent files a return
- Visit www.irs.gov to help determine how to calculate your exemptions
3. Check Tax Credits
- First time Homebuyer credit
- Child tax credit
- Dependent car credit
- Adoption credit
- Education credit
- Energy improvement credit
- Foreign paid tax credit
4. Decide How To File
- E-file
- Paid preparer
- Standard deductions
- Itemized deductions
5. File On Time
- Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Of The 144,103,375 personal income taxes filed in 2010:
- 75.7% are e-filed
- 57.7% Used a paid tax preparer
- 33.85 claimed itemized deductions
- 64.4% Claimed standard deductions
Credits Can Help You Save Big!
- Adoption Credit:
9,859 taxpayers filed for a total claim of $125 million. - 1st Time Homebuyer Credit:
37,273 taxpayers filed new claims for a total claim of $262 million. - 335,341 fraudulent returns were identified by the IRS in 2010. This totaled over $1.88 billion in fraudulent prevented.
- Only claim deductions you can prove! Keep receipts, have your bank and credit card statements in order and don’t have record of.
