Yay, I'm not the only one who worked on taxes! Alas, I didn't receive the IRS booklet+forms mailing this year, so there were several trips upstairs to the printer, and I didn't actually finish. (I was also fiddling with my PDA at the time, and talking to gigglefest for a while... many distractions, not exactly a problem!)
Today at the library I picked up the actual instruction booklet, so I won't have to page through a PDF when I decide to work on them next. And then I can return the booklet to a library when I'm finished, because hey, it's just the instructions, so I won't have made it imperfect by removing any forms. :)
The MA commuter deduction seems to have vanished this year. Oh well...
Yup, still rental deduction. Huh, the CA one sounds confusing; in MA you can do anything up to a cap, AFAIK. Well, maybe the partial-year resident forms are different, for all I know.
And i agree about the cradle, too! I was thinking of making some jokes about the pictures of his stylish crib, but then I didn't.
It's been a while since I've rented, so I could be wrong, but I don't remember there being any proof required. Just a cap on how much you could deduct and a requirement to list your landlord's name. Though presumably a copy of a lease would be sufficient proof if it ever came into question.
Yeah, I don't think you need proof at all at the time of filing. On my tax forms from the last two years all I had to do was put down the amount I spent on rent. If I recall correctly, the cap was in the ballpark of $6000, and you halve that to get your deduction.
There's also a deduction for using public transportation, which didn't require proof on the tax forms as well.
I actually didn't have too much left to do this weekend to file my taxes. I mostly sketched them out New Year's Eve trying to stay awake 'til midnight. And the MD tax form is much simpler than the MA form.
This was my first totally paperless tax return year. Read the instrustions via PDF, did all my calculations via gnumeric, and filed all my taxes on-line. I'm still not totally comfortable with filing them on-line, but I've filed my federal form that way for several years now (I've found a place I can file for free) and MD has it's own web form to use to file.
Yet I always go through the forms and calculate my own taxes before I do the on-line stuff just to make sure. This year, I found an inconsistency between the instructions on the MD on-line form and the instruction booklet. It only made a $1 difference in my tax, so I've ignored it.
Today at the library I picked up the actual instruction booklet, so I won't have to page through a PDF when I decide to work on them next. And then I can return the booklet to a library when I'm finished, because hey, it's just the instructions, so I won't have made it imperfect by removing any forms. :)
The MA commuter deduction seems to have vanished this year. Oh well...
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and that's one nifty cradle! Okay, that is not a response to this post either, but at least it's directed at the right person. :)
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And i agree about the cradle, too! I was thinking of making some jokes about the pictures of his stylish crib, but then I didn't.
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There's also a deduction for using public transportation, which didn't require proof on the tax forms as well.
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Thanks!
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Same here!
I actually didn't have too much left to do this weekend to file my taxes. I mostly sketched them out New Year's Eve trying to stay awake 'til midnight. And the MD tax form is much simpler than the MA form.
This was my first totally paperless tax return year. Read the instrustions via PDF, did all my calculations via gnumeric, and filed all my taxes on-line. I'm still not totally comfortable with filing them on-line, but I've filed my federal form that way for several years now (I've found a place I can file for free) and MD has it's own web form to use to file.
Yet I always go through the forms and calculate my own taxes before I do the on-line stuff just to make sure. This year, I found an inconsistency between the instructions on the MD on-line form and the instruction booklet. It only made a $1 difference in my tax, so I've ignored it.
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I'm a luddite for financial stuff in general, so paper it is for me!
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