This week I sat down and started putting together the information for my taxes. Normally I go through all of my spending for the year and categorize everything I spent. This year I decided to try a different method. I loaded up TurboTax on my computer and started filling in information based off the paperwork I received from my employer, banks, and the government. That allowed me to input all of my income for 2020.
Next I came to deductions. I do a fair amount of donations to charities and last year I had about 8 or 9 different organizations that I made donations to. Part of the reason is I started cleaning out my basement and discovered it is better to donate than to throw away. After all, a charitable donation earns a tax deduction that landfill doesn't provide. The only problem is that all of those charities are listed again for this year and I need to figure out if I donated anything to them.
The first thing I did is go through my checkbook registers for the year to see if I wrote any checks to any charities. Then I asked my wife if she had any receipts for donations we made. Ultimately I had hoped I could eliminate a few of the steps I have used in the past to shorten the amount of time it takes me to gather everything so I can complete my taxes. Unfortunately I can't. I guess all of the steps I have used to file my taxes for the past 30 years came about from running through this process every year. Going through the steps in a different order doesn't really save any time. Oh well. I guess I had better get back to categorizing all of my spending for the year.
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