I sort of pride myself on knowing a little bit about a lot of stuff and part of the reason that I'm having such severe culture shock here in the American south is that everything is so new and I don't know anything about almost everything down here. So here are two questions that I would appreciate help with:
1) I found the answers to most of my tax questions but I was wondering if I needed to keep my prescription receipts (I have another eye infection, of course)? Can we claim those in any way or should I just chuck em?
2) This isn't exclusive to America, but that was a good intro so I'll keep it. I finally got everything done on eBay and put up our first listing. I read most of the tips but do y'all have any tips or tricks of the trade or things to watch out for?
Danke!
4 comments:
You can get a deduction on your federal taxes for medical expenses, but it has to be a pretty big chunk of your gross pay in order to qualify (if memory serves me, 7% or so of your adjusted gross). I know we've never met that qualification, but I suppose if you have a medical emergency during the year that you have to pay out of pocket, you could hit it pretty easy.
I would look into whether Paul can do a flex spending account for medical expenses at work. You decide at the beginning of the year (or your company's fiscal year, I suppose) how much money to have deducted pre-tax every month for medical stuff like copays, prescriptions, tylenol, whatever. Then throughout the year you send in your receipts and get reimbursed, the benefit being that the money is taken out before taxes. Of course, if you don't get reimbursed for all you elected to take out, you will lose the dough.
Watch out for the usual scams on ebay with people wanting to have your thing shipped someplace weird, want to pay with Western Union or some shady third party website, or that overpay you and ask you to send them back the difference. Whenever we accepted checks or money orders years ago when we did eBay, we waited a good while after they were deposited to make sure they cleared before we sent anything out. The whole Paypal thing is fairly safe, I think, especially since I believe eBay owns them now. If you are a seller, though, I think there's a limit to how much money you can receive (or transactions) per month with the free Paypal account.
My suggestion about the pharmacy, is when you get ready to file, ask the pharmacist for a printout of the last year's prescriptions. They can do a time frame of anything, a month, two months, or the whole year....that way you have a list of all your prescription expenses for the whole year. Whether it adds up enough to make your deduction amount is another story, but if you use a program like me, you can enter all that stuff and it will tell you whether you have enough or just need to use the standard.
Walgreen's also keeps all your prescription stuff online, so you register on their website, then you can access all your prescriptions (and order refills as well).
Since we currently don't have insurance, I am saving ALL medical receipts. I know it has to be a fairly good-sized chunk of your income, but you never know what will happen and it adds up fast. And I have come to learn that every little deduction helps a lot.
All good info, folks. Thanks a lot!
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