Comments on: Thinking of Itemizing your Tax Deductions? Here’s a Teaser

By: yemek tarifleri

yemek tarifleri — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:26:40 +0000

Definitely a good thing. Donate now and get your money back within a few months when you file your tax return. I don’t itemize but I still donated to the Haiti relief.

By: Investing Online

Investing Online — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 04:57:14 +0000

It basically comes down to a comparison – you really should compare standard versus itemized. Of course if you are someone with nothing to itemize – you can skip it. But if you have a combination of charitable giving, maybe a home based business, or expenses related directly to your work, you might be a lot better of itemizing. No sense in just giving away your money if you don’t have to

By: Jeff Walden

Jeff Walden — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 12:40:43 +0000

No, tithing as giving money to your church; the historical meaning of tithing as an amount is at least 10% of your income, although there’s some disagreement over whether that’s pre-tax or post-tax. If you think it should be pre-tax, then making $57000+ in 2009 (not a particularly large salary in skilled fields, especially if you live somewhere where cost of living makes salaries higher) would alone make itemization worthwhile. The salary would have to be higher if you think the tithe is post-tax, but again depending on your field the necessary salary is still not unusually large.

By: holykemp

holykemp — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:00:51 +0000

UPDATE: Thought I’d share an update and answer my own question. I did my taxes over the weekend and it did make sense for me to itemize, even though I don’t own a home and didn’t make a large purchase in 2009. BUT I do live in a state with a hefty 10% income tax. The tax paid for 2009 was higher than the standard deduction, so I’m itemizing to deduct the state income tax. I think that may have been what Jeff @ 5:51am was referring to?

By: Jeff Walden

Jeff Walden — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:57:51 +0000

Gah, angle brackets ate that last bit up — should have been:

not 0 for less than 7.5% and something much more than 0 if greater/equal to 7.5% (in other words, if you spend x% on medical expenses where x is more than 7.5, you can deduct (x – 7.5)% in medical expenses).

By: Jeff Walden

Jeff Walden — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:54:56 +0000

If memory serves (this was *just discussed* in comments here, I think on the HAPPY post, and I looked it up later and verified — again, if memory serves) the medical expense deduction is only for the extent that medical expenses exceed 7.5%, not 0 for =7.5%.

By: Jeff Walden

Jeff Walden — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:51:22 +0000

Even if you don’t pay mortgage interest or property tax, itemizing is much more likely to make sense if you tithe. 10% of your income can be a very large chunk of change, especially if that’s a pre-tax percentage…

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:51:07 +0000

I haven’t itemized my deductions, but it certainly seems the way to go for homeowners and others who can deduct quite a bit from their return.

By: G.E. Miller

G.E. Miller — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:12:31 +0000

@ Holykemp – it’s hard to answer that question b/c everyone has a slightly different situation. However, it’s much less likely that you’ll be able to deduct over the standard amount if you don’t pay mortgage interest and property tax. It’s still worth looking into, in my opinion, if you don’t own a home.

By: holykemp

holykemp — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:52:07 +0000

Does itemizing make sense if you don’t own a home or didn’t make a major purchase in that tax year? I feel like it’s extremely difficult to get over the $5,700 standard deduction amount (and therefore, make it worth it to itemize) when I can’t deduct property tax, mortgage interest or sales tax on a major purchase. Thoughts?