How to Maximize your Home Business Tax Deductions for 2005

Someone once said, ‘the best way to calculate your taxes is…Honestly’. For 2005, add ‘Smartly’ to that and you’ll get to keep more than you make. This April 15th is going to be day of reckoning for every taxpayer. If you are smart enough with your accounting and keep your eyes and ears open, this could be your favorite day of year. Take full advantage of tax deductions due you and you can come back richer from IRS office.

As a home business owner who has been keeping track of every dollar spent, you can make a killing on your tax deductions with these smart taxpayer tips.

1. Jot it all down: keep a track of all your business expenses. Maintaining timely and accurate records is something you’ll thank yourself for, this April. You don’t necessarily need elaborate documentation to do this. An easy and a very cost effective way would be to keep all your expenses jotted down in a diary. It is a good idea to collect evidence as well (in case IRS decides to do an audit later) like receipts, bills, and statements for cheque payments etc.

2. Shop for your taxes: this financial year you will have a choice to either deduct your state income tax or your state sales tax. Do some math and compare two to see which tax deduction is higher. Major purchases in last financial year should be crosschecked to see in which category they yield a larger deduction.

3. Itemize your deductions: Before you decide to settle down for standard deductions ($4,850 for singles and $9700 for married couples filing jointly), fill out Schedule A to see if your itemized deductions are larger than standard deductions. You might be in for a surprise. Consider itemized deductions in areas like: Home ownership, charitable donations, Medical expenses and miscellaneous deductions. According to IRS's most recent numbers, those filers who itemized back in 2002 deducted an average of $19,673 from their taxes
   
   

Refinance Quote - Get The Best Refinance Quotes You Can Get

When going to refinance or get a mortgage loan quote, internet can be a useful tool to shop around for best interest rate. The reason internet is a good place to start applying, is because most mortgage applications online do not typically pull your credit with first application. Most of time, application will ask you to describe your credit. Once you have received an initial offer, then, mortgage loan consultant who contacts you will ask you if they can pull your credit.

The point is, there is really no risk in applying to many different mortgage companies or lenders online. This can help you compare refinance quotes from multiple lenders.

There are quite a few mortgage companies out there that will submit your pre-approval application to hundreds of lenders and then forward you 4 best mortgage loan refinance quotes. To see a list of these companies, click on link below. If you do this pre-approval process with about 3-4 companies, in less than 24 hours, you could have mortgage refinance quotes from about 12-16 lenders. Imagine how comfortable you would feel knowing what all of your refinance options are. If you had over 10 mortgage loan offers, you would not make mistake of settling for a refinance loan that is not best you can get.

When refinancing, you absolutely want to make sure of a few things before you settle on an offer:

1. Make absolutely sure that you are getting lowest mortgage rate possible for your qualifications. With mortgage rates slowly on rise, you want to make sure that you are not getting a mortgage loan any higher than you can qualify for. If you go direct through lender and not use a broker middleman, sometimes that can help you get a lower interest rate.