Saving money on your taxes doesn’t necessarily mean cheating the government.  There are plenty of legitimate ways to save money on your taxes, many of the overlooked by the average person.

• Itemize.  If you have a lot of potential deductions, particularly if you own a house and are still paying down the interest on your mortgage, you can save money by itemizing.  It requires more time and work than taking the standard deduction, but you may be able to reduce your tax liability by quite a bit this way.
• Deduct donations.  A lot of people donate used goods to Goodwill and similar charities throughout the year.  You can deduct the value of donated clothing and some other types of items from your taxes — but be sure to catalog and photograph everything, because the IRS is starting to require more proof in this department when auditing people!
• Turn your hobby into a business.  If you have a hobby that brings in some income periodically, try turning it into a business.  This enables you to deduct your expenses from your income.  Sometimes enabling you to take these deductions can really be a benefit, especially if you were having to declare the income anyway as a hobby (which doesn’t allow deductions).
• Have cost seg done to analyze your business property deductions.  Cost segregation services can help you save money on your taxes by reamortizing the cost of your business property and enabling you to deduct more of it each year, lowering your tax liability.

A lot of Americans overpay on their taxes every year, so these ways to save money aren’t really cheating the government, but are actually ways for you to reclaim what is actually yours!

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