During this time of year many people are focused on getting their paperwork organized so that they can file their taxes for last year. A lot of people have already filed and received any refund, but there are still those that have yet file. Also during this time (as you may have noticed as well) there are a lot of articles talking about various tax tips and lesser known deductions. Unfortunately, too many people can’t or don’t take advantage of some of these deductions because they didn’t know about them ahead of time or don’t have any record to substantiate them.

Don’t just be indifferent about this though; now is also the time to take note and learn how you can improve your tax situation in future years. If there’s something you didn’t know about and therefore couldn’t take advantage of this past year, plan ahead now so that you’ll be able to make use of it next year. It’s tough to keep track of something that you didn’t know you should be keeping track of. So now that you know, start keeping track of it. For example:

Charitable Mileage

I’ve always heard that you can deduct any mileage related to volunteer or charitable activities, but up until this point I never took advantage of it because I didn’t figure it would amount to much. I’m pretty active with various church assignments and activities though that I’m going to start keeping track of my related mileage. I’ve put a small notebook in each of our cars with a pen so that we can record our beginning and ending mileage on the vehicle for all charitable/volunteer activities. It’s something that I’ve learned I need to do, and now I’m keeping a record of it so that I’ll have all the needed information come tax time next year. [Note: This concept can also be applied to mileage for any other deductible reason.]

Non-Monetary Charitable Contributions

Again, this is an area that I didn’t think would amount to much and also didn’t really want to hassle with. Part of the reason I didn’t want to mess with it was because I wasn’t really sure how it worked and how to come up with the value of donated property. After talking with a friend at work and finding out how he does it, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, and it actually appears to be quite easy. So, I plan on just keeping track of all of the items that we donate (as long as they’re in good condition) and then assigning them a value at the end of the year.

These are just a couple things that I’m going to start doing now that I’ve learned that I can and should. For everyone there will be different things that are new to you, but the important thing is to learn from year to year how you can continually improve things. So don’t disregard the tax information you hear this time of year just because you weren’t prepared. Instead, make sure that you’re prepared for it next year.

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