Cheating on your taxes
Tax time: it can either be a celebration of the great refund you are expecting, or a time of absolute dread and panic. Many are faced with the harrowing reality that they will need to pay the IRS an astronomical amount of money. If you are among those unfortunate souls, surely you’ve considered cheating on your taxes, right? It’s not as uncommon as you might think. Did you know that there are many legal ways to boost your refund or lower the amount you have to pay? Paying taxes stinks…we all know this. So keep reading to find some smart, under the radar and legal ways to cheat on your taxes. The IRS has been screwing you for long enough. It’s time to turn the tables!
Rule number one is a pretty popular one…File online! If you walk into a tax preparation office, the accountants will expect you to hand over receipts and proof of all deductions. If you are obsessive compulsive, you may have 3,000 receipts in alphabetical order in a folder somewhere, but most tax payers have the normal everyday excuses. By filing online you are, in a sense, avoiding a very nasty paper trail. Also, you don’t have to look stupid by telling an accountant that you can’t find your receipts because the kids decided to color on them.
The next thing to consider is something we all learned to do in middle school math—Round Up! Think about the average amount you spend on clothes for work, gas, oil changes, food and so forth and round it up by $100.00or so. Don’t go way overboard and say you spent $5,000.00 on gas when you only spend $1500.00, but every little dime counts. It may not seem like it at first but with all of the nonsense you have to report, rounding up a few bucks here and there can really make a difference. And if you do round up, be convincing. Try to avoid nice and neat even numbers. Rather than round up from 478 to 500, try 507 instead. Odd numbers like this give the impression that you have actually figured these numbers up.
Next on the list is the act of making donations. This is one of the greatest ways to cheat out the IRS without getting caught. Even if it’s that old comforter you dropped off at Good Will, you can claim it. Not only that, but if you paid $200 for it 10 years ago, then you can claim it for $200 today! Keep a tentative idea in your head of donation time and money and claim the gas you spent getting to the donation spot. Deduct everything! Deduct that hair dryer you loaned to your friend a few months ago and never got back if you want! Technically it’s a donation!
Now time to get technical. If you don’t have a 1099 for work you performed, don’t report it. If you got paid cash for working part time for that moving company for a few weeks, don’t report it. Any income you receive that can’t be backed by a 1099 doesn’t technically have to be reported.
Last but not least, think about your medical bills. The IRS takes this as one of the largest deductions. Deduct the gas and time separately from your transportation back and forth to work as this will make more of an impact on your deductions. Deduct your co-pays, your insurance, the time you had to take off of work, and your pharmacy bills. Again, if your kids took markers and crayons to your receipt’s and you don’t have an exact number…round up!
This should be enough to get you started for next year’s taxes. Remember to not go overboard or the IRS will likely notice. Don’t get caught and enjoy your refund!