Shoe box of receipts ... Now what?

[Anonymous]

Someone told me its best to get itemized taxes done. Do I take this shoe box to my tax guy and give it to him. Hope he won't be mad.do people do this still?

[Anonymous]

Assuming you itemize (which most people start doing once they have a mortgage) and assuming you are not self-employed, then chances are the only receipts you need are for charitable deductions. There are in theory other things you can deduct but you need to reach a certain % of income first and most people won't.

Turbotax will do fine for you -- a lot cheaper than an accountant.

[Anonymous]

Okay so all my Safeway receipts won't work. We earn less than $50 000 a year and don't own a house. Did I waste my time collecting all these receipts .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay so all my Safeway receipts won't work. We earn less than $50 000 a year and don't own a house. Did I waste my time collecting all these receipts .

Lol. Yes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay so all my Safeway receipts won't work. We earn less than $50 000 a year and don't own a house. Did I waste my time collecting all these receipts .

Maybe a school could use them? (the grocery stores seem to have some sort of "receipts for education" program).

You probably don't even need to itemize (although again turbotax will figure out if it's worthwhile for you, if you want). If you wait a few days (until 1/30), you can use freefile-- an IRS-sponsored program that gives you access to free tax prep software. http://www.freefile.irs.gov/index.html#.UQJ8NMXsYy0

[Anonymous]

with no mortgage interest to deduct, you will just need to use the 1040EZ form. Should be pretty simple. You don't need the receipts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Okay so all my Safeway receipts won't work. We earn less than $50 000 a year and don't own a house. Did I waste my time collecting all these receipts .

Not necessarily. You just can't use them for your taxes.

Have you thought about making a scrapbook? You could write a little memory associated with each receipt, e.g. cinema ticket, write about a disastrous date, or whatever.

Good luck, and please come back to let us know how it goes!

[Anonymous]

PP is right. But if I had every receipt from the last year, I would use them to make an airtight budget if you don't have one already.

[Anonymous]

Go to one of the online versions of TurboTax like deluxe or premium. Those versions have sections for itemized deductions. Go through the "easy guide" after clicking the deductions tab. It will take you through all of the potential itemized deductions and will give you an idea if you have enough expenses to itemize. If you don't, then you are entitled to the Standard Deduction. The big itemized deductions for most people are charitable contributions, mortgage interest expense, real estate taxes and state income taxes. As the pp said, if you end up taking the Standard Deduction instead of itemizing then you can use TurboTax's federal free version. But you only pay for deluxe or premium when you decide to file so there is no cost to look and review the software.