Well, now that the weather is turning nicer - finally - thoughts turn to vacation. Since we had the bedbugs we will no longer stay in a hotel (although we don’t know that we got them there, many other possibilities). We instead bought a very tiny RV.
This is not one of those behemoths one sees on the road that look like an interstate bus nor one of those cute things with the overhang over the front seats, noooo. This is a Chevy 3500 van conversion. You know, those vans that tradesmen use for their tools. It is, as I like to say, cozy.
The bed when made up - and we keep it made up as is it hard to make it up, takes up over a third of length of the van. The front seats turn around to sit in at night. Between the two there is a mini kitchen behind the driver and a toilet cabinet behind the passenger seat.
Why am I writing about this? If you have think you have a small space with no place to put things - the RV is about 20 x 6.5 feet on the outside and, unlike Dr. Who’s Tardis, it is smaller on the inside. So to be very generous we have about 120 sq feet inside and it is 6 feet 1 inch inside in height - except where it is shorter. I am 5'1" and hit my head frequently. With the bed made up there is about 5 feet by 2.5 feet of walking around space inside.
Now imagine a house that small, with limited storage, and everything in it has be stored in such a way that when the house is moving (especially at high speeds on bumpy roads) the stuff will not move around and will make as little noise as possible. Noise can drive one crazy when one is driving and it is “bam, bam, bam, bam...” all the way. It takes much planning to get everything inside it as we are not minimalists!
When we first got it and looked at the storage - 3 small overhead cubbies over the bed, a small size cabinet overhanging the foot of the bed on one side (with the TV attached to arm on the rear of the cabinet which banged a lot until we figured out how to tie the frame holding the TV together and keep it from moving), small size cabinet under the 2 burner propane stove, 2 shelves with doors on the fronts of them over the “kitchen”, a closet about the height of a shirt with holes for 12 hangers, an overhead drawer over the driver and passenger seats, and a couple of shelves which have a high edge so small items do not fall out . Of course we also have 2 map pockets and the glove compartment and the seat back pockets of the van. Outside there is a compartment, perhaps a foot tall any maybe 4feet long, along the bottom of the driver’s side which holds the electrical cord for hook up at RV parks and has room for similar related items for setting up the RV. There is some storage under the bed about 2 feet deep from the back door of the van and inside there are 3 small cubbies under the bed - one also has one of the water tanks in it and the other the jack for the wheels. Since we keep the bed made up we have additional storage under the bed in what would have been the aisle between the two bench seats which turn into the bed. There is a third “car” seat behind the front passenger seat and it has storage in its base.
At first I planned it all out very well and I managed to get everything we thought we would need into the RV. I bring lots of plastic store shopping bags - good for garbage and also great for stuffing in the assorted compartments around stuff we bring to keep the stuff from moving around. Normal logic has nothing to do necessarily with where things are kept other than items used outside are stored in the outside compartment or inside the rear doors, food items in the cabinets around the kitchen area and items which need a refrigerator in the tiny one it has. Over the several years we have had it we found much of the items we anticipated needing we did not need and have brought less and less to the point that I sometimes have to move items to other cabinets to fill them enough to keep items from shifting and making noise. It never occurred to me when we first got the RV that I would have too much space, I could not figure out where to fit everything!
One of the reasons the RV came to my mind right now is that today we are doing something called dewinterizing. If you live in a cold area you know that in the winter water pipes can freeze, well imagine if the water pipes were in a completely unheated, barely insulated house. In the fall we have to get all the water out of the pipes, tanks, etc. and add a non-toxic antifreeze made for this purpose. Now that it is spring we have to get the anti-freeze out of the system and sanitize the system against anything which might have grown in it during the winter. This involves filling the 2 clean water tanks and running water through the water lines until the antifreeze is out - the antifreeze is pink, so the lines are run until they run clear - sink, inside shower, outside shower and toilet. Then the tanks have added to them a bleach and water mixture - just a touch of bleach - ½ cup in the larger tank and 1/4 cup in the smaller. Then water is added to finish refilling the tanks. Today when we did this we had not used a gallon of water out of each tank and when we went to add the water and bleach we had to run more water out of the lines to fit it in. Then the fun part - we back down the driveway and stop short, up the driveway ditto, several times to mix the bleach and the water. Then the easy part - we then let it all sit for 4 hours to sanitize the tanks.
After the 4 hours - or more - we drain the tanks. Since this is clean water we can just unscrew a cap on the bottom of the RV (guess who gets to crawl under) and the water drains out onto our driveway and into the street. Now, I say “just unscrew” - the drain points to the side of the van that I am sitting on when I do this and is right next to the side. So, especially when bleach is in the water coming out, I have to unscrew it (with my left hand as that is the direction it points) and when the water starts spurting out as the cap comes off - get up as quickly as an overweight 60+ year old woman can to avoid getting wet. When we put the cap back on, if it is while the driveway is still wet from the water I let out, I side on a plastic garbage bag to keep dry. We then refill the tanks and run the clean water through the lines to get rid of the bleach smell. (Not too much run through the lines or we will have to “dump” the grey (sink and shower ) water tank and the black (toilet) tanks and we have to drive to the next county for that, so we run just enough through. The clean tanks are then drained again. Now the instructions talk about doing this multiple times to get rid of the taste of bleach in the water. We have found that rather than waste water, when we go out the first time we bring water in bottles (which we fill at home) to drink and by the end of the first trip the bleach taste is gone. The bleach has long ago changed to water and is safe to use or even drink, even with the taste.
Today we got to the refill the tanks after the bleach part. We have a problem when we do this. The rear tank, which is smaller, seems to have a problem with the bleach having been in the water in it, and will not fill. When the water is put in after the bleach water is let out, the water spurts back out. There seems to be an air bubble formed. My husband has made a long thin tube to deal with this, which lets us fill the tank from the bottom and allows the air in the bubble to leave. This seems to only happen when we are doing this. We had to do it in the dark tonight. We still have to deal with the bleach water in the hot water tank tomorrow.
So, next time you look around your house and think you have too little space and too little storage think about this - there are couples who live full time in these tiny RVs - with large dogs!
Thursday, April 28, 2016
Thursday, April 21, 2016
DIDN'T KEEP UP ENOUGH ON FINANCES DURING MY BUSY SEASON
Well, I had our tax returns in the mail last Friday, 3 days before they were due. I also had extensions out for clients who needed them, except one. The last extension was done and mailed out on the due date as I received the information I needed overnight the night before. Then I had to get some payroll taxes done for clients - due out the end of April, but I don’t like to wait until the end of the month. Now comes the time to catch up with the stack of papers on my desk.
During the time I was busy with work and my husband needed me to help with work in the side yard and finding needed items he had to buy, I still had to keep up with everyday life. I serve as the treasurer of 2 small non-profits and have to keep their bills paid and money deposited in addition to keeping our finances up to date. I thought I did a good job. I did not this tax season and I was lucky I did enough.
Monday afternoon I sat down to write a treasurer’s report for one group for a meeting that night. I had not had a chance to reconcile any bank accounts, which are usually done right away when the statements are received. Luckily I decided to reconcile the group’s bank accounts before I wrote my report as I figured I had the 5 minutes it should take on the computer. Oh boy! The amount in my check book did not match the amount in the computer! I had made 3 deposits, in one day, of the dues money for the year and I had not posted them on the computer. Part of the deposits are dues for our group and part are the dues we collected for our national group, so I had to go back and figure out how much of each deposit was which. So about 45 minutes later I was back at the point where I thought I would be done in 5 minutes. Had I not decided to do the reconciliation I would have given the wrong information at the meeting - I would have said we had less money in our accounts than we did. I managed to get everything I needed to get done before the meeting and was ready only half an hour late!
Then I went to reconcile our personal accounts - I had similar problems with items deposited and listed in the checkbook, but never posted on the computer - again much time wasted which would have been done much quicker and more efficiently if it had been done right and complete the first time.
So today I went to do the bank reconciliations for the other organization. Not much activity. Again, items were not posted to the computer and had to be figured out including listing dues checks collected in the notebook in which I keep track of incoming money for the group. (I also have a similar notebook for the other group.) Again, nothing that made a problem, but what should take less than 10 minutes took almost an hour. I am, however, missing a bank statement for a CD and will have to get a copy from the bank. Was it lost by me due to stacking all the bank statements and putting a rubber band around them until I could do it? Was it lost by the post office - possible as we are having a problem with mail not getting here? I have no idea. If I had been more on top of everything I would know which case it is.
I was lucky. No checks bounced. No deposits were lost. Just time wasted trying to get everything done.
So what have I learned and want to pass along to you? When you start doing something - finish it. Don’t put off the rest of it unless there is really something more important. Make sure if you do stop you leave off at a spot where you can stop without a major problem and get back to it as soon as possible. Especially with money it is important to keep records up to date.
During the time I was busy with work and my husband needed me to help with work in the side yard and finding needed items he had to buy, I still had to keep up with everyday life. I serve as the treasurer of 2 small non-profits and have to keep their bills paid and money deposited in addition to keeping our finances up to date. I thought I did a good job. I did not this tax season and I was lucky I did enough.
Monday afternoon I sat down to write a treasurer’s report for one group for a meeting that night. I had not had a chance to reconcile any bank accounts, which are usually done right away when the statements are received. Luckily I decided to reconcile the group’s bank accounts before I wrote my report as I figured I had the 5 minutes it should take on the computer. Oh boy! The amount in my check book did not match the amount in the computer! I had made 3 deposits, in one day, of the dues money for the year and I had not posted them on the computer. Part of the deposits are dues for our group and part are the dues we collected for our national group, so I had to go back and figure out how much of each deposit was which. So about 45 minutes later I was back at the point where I thought I would be done in 5 minutes. Had I not decided to do the reconciliation I would have given the wrong information at the meeting - I would have said we had less money in our accounts than we did. I managed to get everything I needed to get done before the meeting and was ready only half an hour late!
Then I went to reconcile our personal accounts - I had similar problems with items deposited and listed in the checkbook, but never posted on the computer - again much time wasted which would have been done much quicker and more efficiently if it had been done right and complete the first time.
So today I went to do the bank reconciliations for the other organization. Not much activity. Again, items were not posted to the computer and had to be figured out including listing dues checks collected in the notebook in which I keep track of incoming money for the group. (I also have a similar notebook for the other group.) Again, nothing that made a problem, but what should take less than 10 minutes took almost an hour. I am, however, missing a bank statement for a CD and will have to get a copy from the bank. Was it lost by me due to stacking all the bank statements and putting a rubber band around them until I could do it? Was it lost by the post office - possible as we are having a problem with mail not getting here? I have no idea. If I had been more on top of everything I would know which case it is.
I was lucky. No checks bounced. No deposits were lost. Just time wasted trying to get everything done.
So what have I learned and want to pass along to you? When you start doing something - finish it. Don’t put off the rest of it unless there is really something more important. Make sure if you do stop you leave off at a spot where you can stop without a major problem and get back to it as soon as possible. Especially with money it is important to keep records up to date.
Thursday, April 14, 2016
PROCRASTINATION AND CLEANING UP
I finished our tax return yesterday and I only have left extensions for 1 of my clients to prepare. I would say I finished record early, but my practice has gotten so small, that it is easy to be finished earlier. Have you finished your tax return? If not file for an extension of time to file, but make sure you have paid enough to cover the amount of your taxes, as it is not an extension of time to pay. Oh, and this year the Federal returns and many, if not all, state returns are not due until April 18 - two states not until April 19! Okay, I know, enough with taxes already.
Now, on to today’s subject. Keeping up with what you are doing. I am a major procrastinator. I know many other people with organizing or clutter problems are also procrastinators. I try to keep up with what I am doing and clean up from what I am doing right after I do it. I am on several Yahoo groups about organizing and someone on one of the groups was talking about having to wash the dishes - apparently there are stacks of dirty dishes. It reminded me of a children’s book when I was young - The Man Who Did Not Wash His Dishes. It is, of course about a man who does not wash his dishes as he uses them and by the end of the book he is using soap dishes to eat out of and ends up piling all his dishes on his truck and leaving them out in the rain. (Obviously the book was enough of an explanation of why one needs to do their dishes on a regular basis that some 55 years later I still remember it.)
Our dishwasher died several years ago (the machine, not a person). I went out looking for a new one. I am a cheap person and looked at dishwashers towards the bottom of the middle of the range of dishwashers. I was not seeing ones that did what I wanted them to do. Finally I saw it - a dishwasher with tines which looked far enough apart for my ceramic dishes, a timer to start it, the silverware basket was in sections so I did not have to use the entire basket and waste space for a few pieces of silverware and the tines folded down for putting in pots. Even better ,when I pulled the bottom rack out it did not fall off the track and need to be picked up and put back in place (there is major company highly recommended and when we looked at their dishwashers the bottom rack did not stay on the track and had to be picked up and put back on - try that with it loaded with dishes and pots!) Then I saw the problem with my dream dishwasher - it was almost twice the price of the others. I was not in a rush to buy one and we kept looking. I had just about decided to spend the extra money for the one I liked and then I checked reviews - it came in dead last on one major reviewer! So now I was really confused. I read further online and found out that there is a problem with the dishwashers being made and they do not clean and do not dry. So over my husband’s protests (imagine a husband who wants his wife to spend money - that’s how cheap I am) I decided I did not need to replace the dishwasher. After all it is not a refrigerator or a stove, I can wash the dishes by hand. He protested this idea with the comment - “Wash them every day? You can’t do that.” I reminded him that the first 9 years we were married and living in an apartment I did that. He swore we had a dishwasher in the apartment until I asked where it was and he realized we had not had one.
So now I wash the dishes (and pots and pans, and bowls and glasses and tablewear and cooking utensils and serving pieces) by hand. I figured out it takes me about the same time to wash them and put them in a rack to dry as it did to load the dishwasher. When I started washing them by hand I used a dish rack next to the sink to let them dry. After we had mice I started using the dead dishwasher as a drying rack as everything is safely inside and unexposed while drying.
So I suggested to the person on Yahoo who was having a problem with her dishes that it might be easier to wash the dishes after each time they were used. I explained that after we have lunch I wash the 2 plates, 2 drinking glasses, and (generally) 2 knives and a spoon from lunch. This takes perhaps 5 minutes and then we are free to do whatever we need to do in the afternoon and the dishes are finished with.
After dinner we watch TV in the kitchen (well, we watch it during dinner also as we eat on the late side, around 8 pm). I read the newspaper while the TV is on and when I am done with the newspaper I wash the dishes. Pots, pans (my major pan for cooking is a cast iron skillet - it has to be washed by hand anyway), silverware, dinner dishes, soup bowls and plates, salad bowl, sometimes a gravy boat or small pitcher or a serving bowl or platter. Notice I did not wash the drinking glasses this time. We use them during the evening and for late night snack, so I leave them on the table. This takes about 20 minutes and all is done with.
Later in the evening we have our late night snack. We go to bed late and wake late, so lunch is our first meal of the day and this is our third meal of the day and substitutes for breakfast. When we are done and ready to go up to bed, I wash the glasses, cereal bowls (I told you it was a substitute for breakfast), silverware and anything else we have used. Again, it takes maybe 10 minutes to wash up. When we get up the next day I open the dishwasher “drying rack” and all is clean, dry and ready to go.
When I think about the idea of the dishwasher running for a couple of hours and using electricity, even if the new ones do use less water and electricity (which is why they apparently have problems washing and drying properly), hand washing seems like a better idea for me. I have nothing against dishwashers and will probably get one again (my husband always worries when one of us is ill about the dishes being sanitized enough without a dishwasher), so don’t think that this is a screed against them. It is a suggestion to keep current on washing dishes, etc. to make it easier to keep your kitchen clean and neat.
The person I posted this to replied that “I guess it is a good idea to wash the dishes as we use them. It would be easier.” I sort of hope that this is not someone who is stuck eating out of soap dishes and will have to take their dishes out to the car when it rains to get them cleaned.
Dirty dishes (etc) have other problems too - they will attract bugs and mice, but this idea works for other problems also. Take taxes (sorry, I guess I am mentioning them again) - when I finish a tax return I assemble all of the papers to go back to a client and staple the stack together. I write up the instructions, cover letter, invoice (you didn’t think I did it for fun did you? Well I do like filling in forms, but...) and put it all together to mail to the client, put it in the envelope, put a mailing label on the envelope, seal it up and put it where I keep the outgoing mail. (If the envelope is too big I have a card which says “Mail in bag” and I put that in with the outgoing mail and put the large piece in the bag used to carry the mail to the post office so I remember it.) I also gather together all of the papers which I want to keep for my records - a copy of the return, information notes I made, copies of some forms the client received, information the client wrote and sent to me, etc. I scan them into the computer and save the file to a “Current Clients” file and then staple the papers together and put them in my “to file” box. This way I have a hard copy to work from next year and permanent copy on the computer (of which I will make several backups which are kept in different places and on different media). I shred last year’s return’s hard copy as it was also stored on the computer last year. This way everything which needs to be sent to the client is done and everything I need to keep for myself is done. No lost papers.
After a craft project I try to clear up from it. I store any usable supplies left over, throw out what is not usable or too small an amount to used, and put the finished piece where it will be or where it will be held until it goes somewhere else (gifts, exhibitions, items to be sold).
So give it a try. Yes, I know you have heard it before, when you finish with something don’t leave it lying about - clean up! Each time you clean up as you finish or as you go there is that much less which will be needed to do something with in the future. Sometimes it even encourages me to clean up something else related - if I am putting away left over embroidery floss (thread) from a project and I see some other floss about or scissors or needles - I put them away too. The less new clutter, the easier to clear the old clutter bit by bit.
Now, on to today’s subject. Keeping up with what you are doing. I am a major procrastinator. I know many other people with organizing or clutter problems are also procrastinators. I try to keep up with what I am doing and clean up from what I am doing right after I do it. I am on several Yahoo groups about organizing and someone on one of the groups was talking about having to wash the dishes - apparently there are stacks of dirty dishes. It reminded me of a children’s book when I was young - The Man Who Did Not Wash His Dishes. It is, of course about a man who does not wash his dishes as he uses them and by the end of the book he is using soap dishes to eat out of and ends up piling all his dishes on his truck and leaving them out in the rain. (Obviously the book was enough of an explanation of why one needs to do their dishes on a regular basis that some 55 years later I still remember it.)
Our dishwasher died several years ago (the machine, not a person). I went out looking for a new one. I am a cheap person and looked at dishwashers towards the bottom of the middle of the range of dishwashers. I was not seeing ones that did what I wanted them to do. Finally I saw it - a dishwasher with tines which looked far enough apart for my ceramic dishes, a timer to start it, the silverware basket was in sections so I did not have to use the entire basket and waste space for a few pieces of silverware and the tines folded down for putting in pots. Even better ,when I pulled the bottom rack out it did not fall off the track and need to be picked up and put back in place (there is major company highly recommended and when we looked at their dishwashers the bottom rack did not stay on the track and had to be picked up and put back on - try that with it loaded with dishes and pots!) Then I saw the problem with my dream dishwasher - it was almost twice the price of the others. I was not in a rush to buy one and we kept looking. I had just about decided to spend the extra money for the one I liked and then I checked reviews - it came in dead last on one major reviewer! So now I was really confused. I read further online and found out that there is a problem with the dishwashers being made and they do not clean and do not dry. So over my husband’s protests (imagine a husband who wants his wife to spend money - that’s how cheap I am) I decided I did not need to replace the dishwasher. After all it is not a refrigerator or a stove, I can wash the dishes by hand. He protested this idea with the comment - “Wash them every day? You can’t do that.” I reminded him that the first 9 years we were married and living in an apartment I did that. He swore we had a dishwasher in the apartment until I asked where it was and he realized we had not had one.
So now I wash the dishes (and pots and pans, and bowls and glasses and tablewear and cooking utensils and serving pieces) by hand. I figured out it takes me about the same time to wash them and put them in a rack to dry as it did to load the dishwasher. When I started washing them by hand I used a dish rack next to the sink to let them dry. After we had mice I started using the dead dishwasher as a drying rack as everything is safely inside and unexposed while drying.
So I suggested to the person on Yahoo who was having a problem with her dishes that it might be easier to wash the dishes after each time they were used. I explained that after we have lunch I wash the 2 plates, 2 drinking glasses, and (generally) 2 knives and a spoon from lunch. This takes perhaps 5 minutes and then we are free to do whatever we need to do in the afternoon and the dishes are finished with.
After dinner we watch TV in the kitchen (well, we watch it during dinner also as we eat on the late side, around 8 pm). I read the newspaper while the TV is on and when I am done with the newspaper I wash the dishes. Pots, pans (my major pan for cooking is a cast iron skillet - it has to be washed by hand anyway), silverware, dinner dishes, soup bowls and plates, salad bowl, sometimes a gravy boat or small pitcher or a serving bowl or platter. Notice I did not wash the drinking glasses this time. We use them during the evening and for late night snack, so I leave them on the table. This takes about 20 minutes and all is done with.
Later in the evening we have our late night snack. We go to bed late and wake late, so lunch is our first meal of the day and this is our third meal of the day and substitutes for breakfast. When we are done and ready to go up to bed, I wash the glasses, cereal bowls (I told you it was a substitute for breakfast), silverware and anything else we have used. Again, it takes maybe 10 minutes to wash up. When we get up the next day I open the dishwasher “drying rack” and all is clean, dry and ready to go.
When I think about the idea of the dishwasher running for a couple of hours and using electricity, even if the new ones do use less water and electricity (which is why they apparently have problems washing and drying properly), hand washing seems like a better idea for me. I have nothing against dishwashers and will probably get one again (my husband always worries when one of us is ill about the dishes being sanitized enough without a dishwasher), so don’t think that this is a screed against them. It is a suggestion to keep current on washing dishes, etc. to make it easier to keep your kitchen clean and neat.
The person I posted this to replied that “I guess it is a good idea to wash the dishes as we use them. It would be easier.” I sort of hope that this is not someone who is stuck eating out of soap dishes and will have to take their dishes out to the car when it rains to get them cleaned.
Dirty dishes (etc) have other problems too - they will attract bugs and mice, but this idea works for other problems also. Take taxes (sorry, I guess I am mentioning them again) - when I finish a tax return I assemble all of the papers to go back to a client and staple the stack together. I write up the instructions, cover letter, invoice (you didn’t think I did it for fun did you? Well I do like filling in forms, but...) and put it all together to mail to the client, put it in the envelope, put a mailing label on the envelope, seal it up and put it where I keep the outgoing mail. (If the envelope is too big I have a card which says “Mail in bag” and I put that in with the outgoing mail and put the large piece in the bag used to carry the mail to the post office so I remember it.) I also gather together all of the papers which I want to keep for my records - a copy of the return, information notes I made, copies of some forms the client received, information the client wrote and sent to me, etc. I scan them into the computer and save the file to a “Current Clients” file and then staple the papers together and put them in my “to file” box. This way I have a hard copy to work from next year and permanent copy on the computer (of which I will make several backups which are kept in different places and on different media). I shred last year’s return’s hard copy as it was also stored on the computer last year. This way everything which needs to be sent to the client is done and everything I need to keep for myself is done. No lost papers.
After a craft project I try to clear up from it. I store any usable supplies left over, throw out what is not usable or too small an amount to used, and put the finished piece where it will be or where it will be held until it goes somewhere else (gifts, exhibitions, items to be sold).
So give it a try. Yes, I know you have heard it before, when you finish with something don’t leave it lying about - clean up! Each time you clean up as you finish or as you go there is that much less which will be needed to do something with in the future. Sometimes it even encourages me to clean up something else related - if I am putting away left over embroidery floss (thread) from a project and I see some other floss about or scissors or needles - I put them away too. The less new clutter, the easier to clear the old clutter bit by bit.
Thursday, April 7, 2016
TAXES PART 3 MORE DEDUCTIONS - THE FINAL PART
Wow, I thought I might not get a chance to write and post this week. I am in the final leg of doing tax returns for clients (ours waits until the clients returns are finished), preparing for a club meeting today, my husband’s birthday this past Monday and a day trip out of state for his birthday yesterday, Tuesday, I have not had a chance to write the post, something I usually do overnight Tuesday to Wednesday. So here it goes -
The last two posts were about income and the most common types of deductions for personal income taxes and saving the paperwork during the year (and sort of what you should be looking for now if you did not save the paperwork during the year) so that the returns can be easily prepared and filed. Today I am going to talk about some common,but less common deductions which go on the same form - Schedule A. You also know that I will now tell you that you should not rely on this post for income tax advice and you should always check with your tax preparer and that different things apply to different people and different situations.
There are an assortment of situations in which one suffers a financial loss. called a casualty loss. Sometimes one can deduct part of the loss on their taxes if they file Schedule A. If you had a theft loss, a accident, such as car accident, vandalism, fire, or storm damage or a bank in which you have money becoming insolvent - these are some of the losses which can be deducted. You need to fill in another form 4684 and attach it to your return, which will give you the information to fill in Schedule A. So if you had any of these situations, keep any paperwork you have - insurance claims, police or fire reports, etc. (Put them in what? Yes, your envelope.) There are limits on this deduction - you have to subtract $100 for each event and the loss has to be more than 10% as calculated in a certain manner and you have to subtract any insurance payment or other reimbursement from your loss. When you do the paperwork for this type of loss you can take the loss in value of the item(s) as the deduction amount. What does this mean? If your car was hit by someone it is a casualty loss. The loss is not what it cost you to fix the car - it is the difference in value before and after the accident. If the car was worth $20,000 immediately before the accident and immediately after the accident it is worth $10,000 - your loss would be $10,000 - but then you have to subtract what you received from insurance (yours or someone else’s) and/or what the person who hit you (or anyone else) paid you towards the damage to the car. Then you subtract $100 and then you will have to do the 10% of your income (calculated a certain way) calculation. If you have an item stolen - then the value after the casualty is zero (unless it only partially stolen). This is the sort of thing that makes it good to have someone help you with your taxes. I thought I would mention it as not everyone knows about it.
Then there are what are called miscellaneous and certain job expenses. If you have certain expenses related to your job (and you are not self- employed) they can be deducted - maybe. Like medical expenses the expenses in the category have to be more than a certain percentage of your income 2%.
First, job expenses. There are specific job expenses which are allowed - union or other dues required for your job. Uniforms or other special clothes you need to provide for your job. This category can be odd. One reason doctors traditionally wear white coats? The white coats are deductible, a suit jacket is not. Deducible clothing can not be clothing which can be worn for every day purposes. This would also include tools if you are required to provide your own tools for work. Commuting to work - your trip to your normal work place and home again - is not deductible, but if your boss sends you out from work and you pay the cost of getting to the other location - it is deductible. There is a form 2106 (isn’t it great how there is a form for everything?) on which one lists their job related expenses - the instructions will let you know what can be deducted, as does the instructions for Schedule A. Some job related education can be deducted - read the instructions. If your boss reimburses you for expenses it is income to you and you want to deduct the expenses you paid out to decrease this income. You can deduct the job expenses allowed against what your boss reimbursed you for same even if you cannot itemize your deductions using the form 2106. If your expenses are more than the your boss gave you - that’s when it is deducted on your Schedule A. Certain expenses are allowed based on your job.
You can also deduct in this section of Schedule A expenses related to making your investments - publications, a safe deposit box if you keep financial papers in it, if you pay your income tax by credit card and you are charged a fee by your credit card company, what you pay for your income tax preparation or consultation, and other items - again they are listed in the instructions for Schedule A. Did you have to close a CD early and pay a fee for doing so? Yes, it is deductible here.
There is also a listing of items you cannot deduct in the instructions for this section in the instructions. Again - keep all the paperwork and put it into your envelope as you get it.
You may wonder why some deductions are allowed less a percentage. This is an attempt to make the taxes fair (yes, I said fair). Your medical expenses can be deducted, for example to the extent that they are more than 10% of your income? Why? Well in a simplified explanation, our friends at IRS realize two things - first, everyone has normal medical expenses and second, people with higher incomes can afford to pay more for their normal medical expenses than someone who makes less money. At the present time the amount they consider to be what is normal for a family is up to the 10%. But they also realize that older people often have more medical expenses and therefore once one is older, the percentage falls to 7.5% of income. Oh - did I mention that medical expenses include dental expenses?
Similarly the idea is that casualty losses of up to 10% can be absorbed by someone, while larger amounts cannot be as easily absorbed - and again those with higher incomes can deduct less - in terms of dollars - than someone with a lower income.
The same idea applies to the job and “miscellaneous” deductions - 2% is normal for these expenses to be, and over that is what is unusual and can be deducted. In this case there is also an understanding that someone who receives reimbursement for their job expenses might be better off not using Schedule A and itemizing (listing) their deductions, so on form 2106 they can offset their reimbursement and job expenses.
Even the idea of itemized deductions is IRS’s understanding that not everyone is the same. Everyone is allowed a “standard deduction” which is what IRS thinks the average person should have in all of these items. (And there are different standard deduction amounts for single people, married couples, heads of household, and older people.) If you have more you are allowed to list what you actually have in these expenses and deduct the actual expenses you have itemized (listed). Once one’s income is over a certain amount than one is not allowed to deduct as much of their itemized deductions - again, those with higher incomes can better afford the expenses listed and are more limited as to what they can deduct.
See, you didn’t know that IRS could be nice to you, did you?
Taxes are much too hard to explain in simple terms so all of this is a generalized, basic idea to tell you what the average person should be aware to keep paperwork to help with their taxes. An envelope - big manila, labeled and in a specific place is a great start to helping you keep it all together for your taxes. Not mentioned here is an assortment of specific items - such as if you own a house - keep the papers from when you bought it and any major repairs or additions until you sell the house.
The instruction books from IRS are actually a good source of help. If you look at them online in pdf format you can search the instructions to find what you need.
Talk to you next week - on a new topic, but don’t forget to start your envelope for this year if you have not done so yet - make your 2016 taxes easy to file in 2017!
The last two posts were about income and the most common types of deductions for personal income taxes and saving the paperwork during the year (and sort of what you should be looking for now if you did not save the paperwork during the year) so that the returns can be easily prepared and filed. Today I am going to talk about some common,but less common deductions which go on the same form - Schedule A. You also know that I will now tell you that you should not rely on this post for income tax advice and you should always check with your tax preparer and that different things apply to different people and different situations.
There are an assortment of situations in which one suffers a financial loss. called a casualty loss. Sometimes one can deduct part of the loss on their taxes if they file Schedule A. If you had a theft loss, a accident, such as car accident, vandalism, fire, or storm damage or a bank in which you have money becoming insolvent - these are some of the losses which can be deducted. You need to fill in another form 4684 and attach it to your return, which will give you the information to fill in Schedule A. So if you had any of these situations, keep any paperwork you have - insurance claims, police or fire reports, etc. (Put them in what? Yes, your envelope.) There are limits on this deduction - you have to subtract $100 for each event and the loss has to be more than 10% as calculated in a certain manner and you have to subtract any insurance payment or other reimbursement from your loss. When you do the paperwork for this type of loss you can take the loss in value of the item(s) as the deduction amount. What does this mean? If your car was hit by someone it is a casualty loss. The loss is not what it cost you to fix the car - it is the difference in value before and after the accident. If the car was worth $20,000 immediately before the accident and immediately after the accident it is worth $10,000 - your loss would be $10,000 - but then you have to subtract what you received from insurance (yours or someone else’s) and/or what the person who hit you (or anyone else) paid you towards the damage to the car. Then you subtract $100 and then you will have to do the 10% of your income (calculated a certain way) calculation. If you have an item stolen - then the value after the casualty is zero (unless it only partially stolen). This is the sort of thing that makes it good to have someone help you with your taxes. I thought I would mention it as not everyone knows about it.
Then there are what are called miscellaneous and certain job expenses. If you have certain expenses related to your job (and you are not self- employed) they can be deducted - maybe. Like medical expenses the expenses in the category have to be more than a certain percentage of your income 2%.
First, job expenses. There are specific job expenses which are allowed - union or other dues required for your job. Uniforms or other special clothes you need to provide for your job. This category can be odd. One reason doctors traditionally wear white coats? The white coats are deductible, a suit jacket is not. Deducible clothing can not be clothing which can be worn for every day purposes. This would also include tools if you are required to provide your own tools for work. Commuting to work - your trip to your normal work place and home again - is not deductible, but if your boss sends you out from work and you pay the cost of getting to the other location - it is deductible. There is a form 2106 (isn’t it great how there is a form for everything?) on which one lists their job related expenses - the instructions will let you know what can be deducted, as does the instructions for Schedule A. Some job related education can be deducted - read the instructions. If your boss reimburses you for expenses it is income to you and you want to deduct the expenses you paid out to decrease this income. You can deduct the job expenses allowed against what your boss reimbursed you for same even if you cannot itemize your deductions using the form 2106. If your expenses are more than the your boss gave you - that’s when it is deducted on your Schedule A. Certain expenses are allowed based on your job.
You can also deduct in this section of Schedule A expenses related to making your investments - publications, a safe deposit box if you keep financial papers in it, if you pay your income tax by credit card and you are charged a fee by your credit card company, what you pay for your income tax preparation or consultation, and other items - again they are listed in the instructions for Schedule A. Did you have to close a CD early and pay a fee for doing so? Yes, it is deductible here.
There is also a listing of items you cannot deduct in the instructions for this section in the instructions. Again - keep all the paperwork and put it into your envelope as you get it.
You may wonder why some deductions are allowed less a percentage. This is an attempt to make the taxes fair (yes, I said fair). Your medical expenses can be deducted, for example to the extent that they are more than 10% of your income? Why? Well in a simplified explanation, our friends at IRS realize two things - first, everyone has normal medical expenses and second, people with higher incomes can afford to pay more for their normal medical expenses than someone who makes less money. At the present time the amount they consider to be what is normal for a family is up to the 10%. But they also realize that older people often have more medical expenses and therefore once one is older, the percentage falls to 7.5% of income. Oh - did I mention that medical expenses include dental expenses?
Similarly the idea is that casualty losses of up to 10% can be absorbed by someone, while larger amounts cannot be as easily absorbed - and again those with higher incomes can deduct less - in terms of dollars - than someone with a lower income.
The same idea applies to the job and “miscellaneous” deductions - 2% is normal for these expenses to be, and over that is what is unusual and can be deducted. In this case there is also an understanding that someone who receives reimbursement for their job expenses might be better off not using Schedule A and itemizing (listing) their deductions, so on form 2106 they can offset their reimbursement and job expenses.
Even the idea of itemized deductions is IRS’s understanding that not everyone is the same. Everyone is allowed a “standard deduction” which is what IRS thinks the average person should have in all of these items. (And there are different standard deduction amounts for single people, married couples, heads of household, and older people.) If you have more you are allowed to list what you actually have in these expenses and deduct the actual expenses you have itemized (listed). Once one’s income is over a certain amount than one is not allowed to deduct as much of their itemized deductions - again, those with higher incomes can better afford the expenses listed and are more limited as to what they can deduct.
See, you didn’t know that IRS could be nice to you, did you?
Taxes are much too hard to explain in simple terms so all of this is a generalized, basic idea to tell you what the average person should be aware to keep paperwork to help with their taxes. An envelope - big manila, labeled and in a specific place is a great start to helping you keep it all together for your taxes. Not mentioned here is an assortment of specific items - such as if you own a house - keep the papers from when you bought it and any major repairs or additions until you sell the house.
The instruction books from IRS are actually a good source of help. If you look at them online in pdf format you can search the instructions to find what you need.
Talk to you next week - on a new topic, but don’t forget to start your envelope for this year if you have not done so yet - make your 2016 taxes easy to file in 2017!
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