The two most popular $20 computer tax preparation programs
will ask you about about most of them. I also notice they do
a fair amount of "what-if" analysis. That is, they calculate
a bunch of secondary tax form like the A-schedule, AMT,
2210, etc. to see if the alternative is cheaper or required.

You yourself can do some interactive what-if analysis. That
is experiment with taking or timing (advancing to this year;
delaying to next year) of various deductions and income.
This is best done in Nov/Dec when the new computer programs
are released and you still can make some financial changes
for the year.

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NoNameAtAll wrote:

- quote -

Well, I'm not sure exactly what you might want, but if you
want to read something free to get started, I'd recommend
IRS Publication 17 (Your Income Taxes), which is fairly
comprehensive. You can find that at the IRS website
(http://www.irs.gov) by going to the publications section.
It will be a rather large PDF file, but it does have a lot
of information written for laypersons.

--
Ed Zollars, CPA
Phoenix, Arizona

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I have a pretty typical family with pretty typical tax
deductions for mortgage interest, property taxes, etc. and
credits for day care expenses. Doing my own taxes is simple
enough because we don't have any complicated investments,
business relationships, etc. Is there some kind of resource,
such as a book or web site, that can tell me the best way to
maximze the deductions and credits I'm currently eligible
for or that I could become eligbile for by doing the right
things?

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