{"id":3710,"date":"2015-02-23T12:09:01","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T17:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wordpress\/?p=3710"},"modified":"2015-02-28T00:22:56","modified_gmt":"2015-02-28T05:22:56","slug":"last-minute-tax-tips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=3710","title":{"rendered":"Last Minute Tax Tips"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><em>You\u2019ve received your W-2 and are starting to look at your taxes.\u00a0 Although the filing deadline isn\u2019t until <span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_536130430\"><span class=\"aQJ\">April 15th<\/span><\/span>, it\u2019s not too early to start thinking about how you can increase your tax refund.<\/em><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>Here are some commonly overlooked deductions that can increase your bottom line:<\/p>\n<h3><i>Did you buy real estate this year?<\/i><\/h3>\n<p>When you take out a mortgage loan, and prepay mortgage interest points, the cost of those points is deductible.\u00a0 If you refinance an existing property, the interest points get deducted over the term of the loan.\u00a0 Most people don\u2019t stop there, though, refinancing the same property several times.\u00a0 On a subsequent refinance, you should take a deduction for the remaining value of the points from the prior refinance.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<h3><i>Did You Donate to charity?<\/i><\/h3>\n<p>Whether you donated dollars, or services, or physical goods, you may have deductions available to you you didn\u2019t think of.\u00a0 If you volunteer for a charity, you can deduct 14 cents per mile driven while volunteering.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<h3><i>Did You Have Medical Expenses?<\/i><\/h3>\n<p>Your medical expenses must be more than ten percent of your adjusted gross income before you can claim a deduction.\u00a0 The threshold increased up from 7.5% of your AGI.\u00a0 But, if you or your spouse is over 65 years of age, the threshold is 7.5%.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you love the IRS?<\/p>\n<p>You may be able to deduct the cost of equipment for disabled individuals, such as crutches, walkers and orthopedics. \u00a0 Also, you may be able to deduct the cost of any changes you have made to your home to accommodate an elderly or disabled person (but you have to back out the increase in value to your home, if any).<\/p>\n<h3><i>A Special Note for Teachers<\/i><\/h3>\n<div>Teachers, take note.\u00a0Remember to\u00a0keep your receipts if you\u2019ve purchased any supplies for your classroom. You can deduct up to $250 even if you do not itemize your deductions.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><i>Bryan Tuk is an attorney in Allentown focused on business law, family law &amp; nonprofits and arts organization law.\u00a0 You can follow him on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BryanTukArtsLaw\" target=\"_blank\">@BryanTukArtsLaw <\/a>or reach him via email at <a href=\"mailto:btuk@eastburngray.com\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #1155cc;\">btuk@eastburngray.com<\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><div class='adkingprobanner sidebar banner3023'><a href='http:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/' target=\"_blank\" data-id='3023' data-ga='{\"campaign\":\"\",\"banner\":\"\",\"implemented\":\"universal\",\"imp_action\":\"Impression\",\"click_action\":\"Click\"}'><img src='https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/inpostblank.jpg' alt='' \/><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?post_type=adverts_posts&p=3023\" class=\"read-more\">Click here to read more... <\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1173,1342],"tags":[1281,1347,1343,1345,1246,1297,1346,1344],"class_list":["post-3710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-financial","category-law","tag-charity","tag-donate","tag-filing","tag-medical-expenses","tag-real-estate","tag-taxes","tag-teachers","tag-w-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Bryan-Tuk.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}