I know that as a single person I hafta fill out the 1040ez with my W-2, but I've made donations (contributions) to my church over the past couple years and my dad told me that I can get all that money back cuz the checks are tax deductible. Does anyone know what I need to do?
2007-02-12 13:56:29 · 4 answers · asked by melissabgarner 2 in Business & Finance ➔ Taxes ➔ United States
first of all, you can only claim your charitable contributions if you itemize your deductions on Form 1040, Schedule A. im assuming you are filing the 1040ez because you do not have deductions in excess of the standard deduction of $5,150.
therefore you would not claim these charitable contributions.
2007-02-12 14:02:45 · answer #1 · answered by tma 6 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Add up your charitable contributions plus state income taxes that you paid. There are some other expenses you could count also, but if you don't own a house, those are probably the ones you'd have. If that total is over $5150, then you'd want to itemize - which would mean you'd list your deductions. You get $5150 automatically as a "standard deduction" but if your deductible expenses like church donations are higher than that, you can list them instead. To do that you'd use a 1040 and a schedule A. Otherwise go ahead and file the 1040EZ.
If you itemized, you wouldn't get ALL of the money back, you might get a percentage of it back. Depending on your taxable income, that might be around 15%. And it would only be saving a percentage of the amount that your deductions were OVER the $5150.
2007-02-12 14:25:13 · answer #2 · answered by Judy 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
You don't have to fill out a form 1040ez. You do that because you don't have enough deductions to itemize and so take the standard deduction. Charitable deductions are part of itemized deductions. There are lots of rules that apply but you can go to irs.gov and download their publication on charitable donations. If you chose to itemize your deductions you would do that on a schedule A and file a form 1040. This should get you started. . .
2007-02-12 14:19:01 · answer #3 · answered by towanda 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Tax deductible does not mean you get back the amount you contributed. It means that you can use that amount to reduce your taxable income which will lower your itaxes somewhat if you have enough deductions.
2007-02-12 14:06:41 · answer #4 · answered by TaxGurl 6 · 2⤊ 2⤋