Travis H. Long, CPA, Inc. Blog

Originally published in the Cedar Street Times

October 31, 2014

Two weeks ago we discussed a general overview of the Form 1040 – a personal income tax return.  The 1040 can be thought of as a two-page summary of your taxes in a nutshell.  (I should mention also there are two other shorter forms that could be filed instead: a 1040A and a 1040EZ.  These are for simpler returns and have income limits and other restrictions.  In practice, however, anyone using tax software does not really have to decide which form to use and the software will generally optimize as appropriate.  For our discussion we will focus on the 1040.)

The details for many of the items on the Form 1040 are actually determined on subsequent Schedules and Forms.   Schedules are labeled with letters of the alphabet and additional forms are generally four digit numbers.  Schedules are generally more major topical areas.  For instance, Schedule C – Profit or Loss from Business, which is a summary of all the activity of a sole proprietorship.  It may in turn have subsequent forms that support it.  Forms are often more narrowly focused and would generally support other schedules or forms.  For instance Form 4572 Depreciation, could support the calculation of depreciation expense for a business on Schedule C, a rental property on Schedule E, a farm on Schedule F, etc.  I have not counted them all, but I have read the IRS has over 800 forms and schedules.  The reality is that most people are covered by 30 or 40 of those 800!

Let’s start at the beginning of the alphabet – Schedule A.  (I am sure this saddens you, but we will not be going through all 800 in this series of articles, but we will hit on a number of the most common ones!)  Schedule A is for itemized deductions.  You probably hear lots of people justify expenses by tossing around the phrase, “it’s deductible.”  However, just because something may be deductible, does not mean it will benefit you. This is easily seen with Schedule A.  Schedule A covers a host of “expenses” that most people have that our tax code has graced as good behavior and therefore allows a deduction for it.  Medical expenses, state and local taxes, real estate taxes, mortgage interest, charitable deductions, unreimbursed employee business expenses, my favorite – tax preparation fees, investment expenses, etc.

Since Congress realized that everyone had some of this, and it would be a pain for people to track it, they decided to allow as an option a “standard deduction” for everyone in lieu of tracking and itemizing all those deductions.  The standard deduction was created to generally cover what many people would have on the average anyway.  For 2014 this standard deduction is $6,200 if you file as Single or Married Filing Separate, $12,400 if you file Married Filing Jointly or Qualifying Widow(er), and $9,100 if you are filing Head of Household status.  If you believe you would have more than this, then you would itemize the deductions using Schedule A.

Mortgage interest and real estate taxes are the two areas that push most Californians into the itemizing zone.  In other words, if you do not own a home, there is a good chance you won’t be itemizing.  This is not always true: sometimes people don’t own a home, but make a lot of money and pay a lot of deductible state income taxes which would push them over the standard deduction, or maybe they work in sales jobs where they have lots of unreimbursed employee business expenses, or have major unreimbursed medical expenditures, or are perhaps like you dear reader, and have a heart of gold giving away buckets of money to charitable organizations each year!  Or it could be a combination of things – paid some income taxes, have a stingy boss that won’t reimburse, and maybe you have a heart of bronze.

Next week we will discuss more specifically the deductions on Schedule A and how they can come out looking a little thin after running the Schedule A gauntlet.

Prior articles are republished on my website at www.tlongcpa.com/blog.

Travis H. Long, CPA is located at 706-B Forest Avenue, PG, 93950 and focuses on trust, estate, individual, and business taxation. He can be reached at 831-333-1041.