Tax Deductions You’re Probably Forgetting - Page 3

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Your CPA does his best to catch all of your possible deductions, but he doesn’t know your life. He doesn’t know every single thing you did this year. He wasn’t there, holding your hand, documenting your travels and life events and changes and struggles. He will do his best to ask you detailed questions in order to draw out all of the information he needs to get you those deductions, but he may miss something. Plus, you always have to look out for yourself. Even if you’re paying a professional to do that for you, never lean back and close your eyes to the process. That’s your money on the line, and missing even small deductions, year after year, can mean thousands of dollars you hand over, that you didn’t need to.

You also need to remember that the nature of the professional’s life is changing. The way people conduct business is different now. Workplace culture has changed. Offices have changed. You have these community, rent-by-the week or month or day spaces like WeWork and Spaces. You have social media ads. Meanwhile, your CPA may not be up to speed on these trends. If your CPA is from an older generation, or has simply conducted his business the same way for a long time, he may be in the dark about some professional trends that affect your tax deductions.

So often, we forget just how much we spent to make money in a year. It isn’t always as simple or obvious as paying for staplers or your assistant’s salary. There are so many expenses—big and small—that we hand over our hard-earned cash for, just so that we can go out there and work hard to earn more cash. But our lives are busy, so we forget about these. Here are tax deductions you can’t afford to forget.

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Your CPA’s fee

The very fee you pay your CPA to do your taxes is tax-deductible—at least part of it is. Hey, you spend money so that the IRS can get their money, and so you can get yours. Your CPA’s fee is essentially the money you spend to make the money of your tax refund (if you’re lucky enough to get one).

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Subscriptions

Do you subscribe to weekly, monthly, or quarterly newsletters and magazines that keep you informed on what’s happening in your industry? Remember that some of these may be online newsletters that you signed up for years ago—maybe you just pay $12.99 per month for a subscription—and forgot about. But you have four or five of these coming your way now, which could mean nearly $60 a month spent on them.

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Replaced equipment

Did you replace your computer charger? Did you need a new phone charger? Did you get something to prop up your tablet so you can conduct video conference calls on that while typing on your laptop? These can add up to hundreds of dollars in expenses that you paid to do business.

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Online ads

Did you run a Facebook ad? Pay for a Sponsored Instagram post? Pay for a newsletter system to automatically email your monthly newsletter to your contact list? Don’t forget to include these costs in your deductions. You can often go into the billing section of your social media accounts to recall which ads you’ve run throughout the year.

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Moving expenses

If you had to move for a job and the expenses were substantial—the deduction typically applies to those who have to move 50 miles or more for work—don’t forget to write off those costs. If you had to pay for movers, boxes, a U-hual, etc, that can all be deducted from your income.

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Childcare expenses

The easiest way to see this deduction is to use your company’s childcare reimbursement account, if they have one. You can run childcare costs directly through this account, and see deductions for, in some cases, up to $5,000 or $6,000 a year. Ask your CPA about the specifics for your situation.

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Mortgage points

If you purchased a home and needed to take out a mortgage to do so, you may have paid your lender something called “points.” This is a one-time, upfront cost to buy down your rate. The cost is typically somewhere in the $1,000 to $6,000 range, depending on the cost of your home and how much you buy the rate down. You can write off these points in your taxes.

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Jury fees

If you have a very generous employer, they may pay your full salary for every day you serve on jury duty, no matter how many days that may be. That being said, they will likely ask that, in return, you pass the fees the court pays you onto the company. Make sure to report that to your CPA, or else the IRS will consider those fees your income, when you, in fact, didn’t keep them.

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Car maintenance

If you drive for work, then the upkeep and maintenance of your car—all or at least some of it—may be tax deductible. If the appearance of your car is important for your work, you can write off car washes. Did you replace a tire this year? Get oil changes? You can write some of these off.

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Job agency fees

Were you on the job hunt last year? You may have paid job agencies to help you look. You may have paid subscription fees for platforms that give you access to elite job listings. Don’t forget to write off any fees you paid to any person or service that helped you find a job.

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Other job search expenditures

Did you have to buy clothes for your job interview? Take cabs to get to those interviews? Buy ink to print your resume? Fly or take a train to another city for a job interview? You can write these off. The only times you can’t are when you’re looking for your first job, or when you’ve been unemployed for an extended period of time.

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Further education

This falls under the Lifetime Learning Credit and it covers up to 20 percent of your expenses on up to $10,000 for a maximum credit of $2,000 on further education. So if you took a class this year to boost your job skills, don’t forget to write off your class fees.