Itemized Deductions 2012 - What are Itemized Deductions 2012?

What are Itemized Deductions?
Deductions you claim based on things like mortgage interest, charitable donations, career expenses and much more.

After computing their adjusted gross income (AGI), taxpayers can itemize their deductions (from a list of allowable items) and subtract those itemized deductions (and any applicable personal exemption deductions) from their AGI amount to arrive at their taxable income amount. Alternatively, they can elect to subtract the standard deduction for their filing status (and any applicable personal exemption deduction) to arrive at their taxable income. In other words, the taxpayer may generally deduct the total itemized deduction amount, or the standard deduction amount, whichever is greater.

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What is Standard Deduction?
The standard deduction - is the given dollar amount from the federal government that you can deduct from your taxable income and is based upon filing status.

When you choose to take the standard deduction, it makes your tax filing a lot simpler and enables you to use either the Form 1040 EZ or the Form 1040A, which are both much easier to complete.

It is available to US citizens and resident aliens who are individuals, married persons, and heads of household and increases every year. It is not available to nonresident aliens residing in the United States. Additional amounts are available for persons who are blind and/or are at least 65 years of age.The standard deduction is distinct from personal exemptions, which also are available to all taxpayers and dependents. As one may not take both itemized deductions and a standard deduction, taxpayers generally choose the deduction that results in the lesser amount of tax owed.

Two important notes:

You cannot claim both the standard deduction AND the itemized deductions. You must pick one or the other.
If you choose the itemized deductions, you should keep receipts for every item you decided to deduct, just in case you were to get audited.

Standard vs Itemized Deductions

Standard deduction might be best if:

You prefer to do your own taxes and want to keep it simple
Your itemized deductions are less than the standard deduction
You haven't kept receipts for potential itemized deductions

Itemized deductions might be best if:

You want to hire a tax professional to file your taxes for you
Your itemized deductions add up to more than the standard
You've kept all your receipts for your itemized deductions

Standard Deductions Table

	Filing status
Year	Single	Married Filing Jointly	Married Filing Separately	Head of household	Qualifying widow(er)
2012	$5,950	$11,900	$5,950	$8,700	$11,900
2011	$5,800	$11,600	$5,800	$8,500	$11,600
2010	$5,700	$11,400	$5,700	$8,400	$11,400
2009	$5,700	$11,400	$5,700	$8,350	$11,400
2008	$5,450	$10,900	$5,450	$8,000	$10,900
2007	$5,350	$10,700	$5,350	$7,850	$10,700
2006	$5,150	$10,300	$5,150	$7,550	$10,300

Standard deductions for elderly and blind

The standard deduction may be higher than the basic standard deduction if any of the following conditions are met:

The taxpayer is 65 years of age or older;
The taxpayer's spouse is 65 years of age or older;
The taxpayer is blind (generally defined as not having corrected vision of at least 20/200 or as having extreme "limitation in the fields of vision"); and/or
The taxpayer's spouse is blind (see definition above).

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