9 Tax Hacks To Maximize Your Refund!

"if you are single and you make under fifty two thousand four hundred or if you are married and your combined income is less than a hundred and four thousand eight hundred dollars then this will apply to you if you are in the stock market and you hold the stock for more than one year and then you sell it for a profit then you will pay zero dollars in federal income taxes if you're in that income range this is called the zero percent capital gains rate therefore if you think your income will be going up next year above those income thresholds you may want to consider selling your winning stocks in order to lock in those gains tax-free"

"if you lost some money in stocks or cryptos but haven't sold out yet of that position then you can sell the stock or that crypto for a loss and then claim that deduction to reduce your taxes this is called stock loss harvesting or crypto loss harvesting ultimately you sell off your losing position and then you lock in your loss with a loss you can write it off and pay less taxes"

"if you are self-employed a sole proprietor or an s-corporation then this one applies to you make sure you claim your sick days on yourself the government is paying you up to five thousand one hundred ten dollars to take ten sick days before the year ends additionally if you have a child and their school is closed for in-person learning you can claim an extra ten thousand dollars of family paid leave"

"if you are single and you make under thirty two thousand five hundred dollars or if you're single making under forty eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars with the dependents or if you're married with combined income less than sixty five thousand dollars then there's a special tax break called the savers credits studies show that less than 10 percent of americans know about the savers credit so i'm happy to keep you informed if you put money into retirement accounts not only will you get a tax deduction but you'll receive an additional tax credit of up to one thousand dollars if you're single or two thousand dollars if you're married filing jointly you can do this with a 401k a 457 a 403 b or with an ira"

"there was a rule change for making donations in 2020 before you could only deduct charitable contributions if you were itemizing your deductions in other words in plain english making charitable donations did not help everyone before in 2020 the charitable donation deduction is now available and applicable to everyone therefore if you're donating to charity in 2020 please make sure that you keep your receipts"

"if you've received unemployment benefits this year use a tax tool estimator to see if they took out enough amount of taxes from your unemployment compensation if not then you're going to end up with a surprise tax bill and you could be charged penalties and interest a penny saved is a penny earned so please make sure that enough taxes were taken out of your unemployment compensation"

"if you have children you have until december 31st to put money into a 529 plan for your children's education which will provide you a tax deduction in your state and in most income tax-paying states the benefits of a 529 plan are you receive a tax deduction for putting away money into that plan the earnings in that plan will grow tax-free and all the earnings will be tax-free if those funds are used for qualifying education expenses please keep in mind that some states they don't charge their residents income taxes so the tax deduction in that scenario would be a moot point however you would still get the benefit of tax-free growth and earnings which would compound significantly especially if you start the plan at a very early age for your child"

"if you are a sole proprietor or a business owner you can rent out your home to your own business for 14 days or less this is called the minimal rental use rule with the irs and this is completely separate from the home office deduction by utilizing the minimal rental use rule you'll get a deduction for your business and it will be tax-free income to you personally"

"if you are a single member llc a sole proprietor self-employed or an s-corporation claim your tax write-offs now before the year ends front load your expenses and accelerate your deductions what i mean by this is that if you're expecting to incur expenses in january or february then you might as well pay those bills now or in december anytime before 2020 ends so that you can use it as a write-off in 2020 instead of waiting 12 months for you to reap those benefits this could be things like rents utilities buying a laptop electronics supplies and so much more as long as the payments is initiated by december 31st or if it is mailed out by december 31st then it will count as a deduction for 2020 and then you'll get the benefit in 2020."