<p>I don’t believe you can write off your health insurance. There are medical deductions you can take for medical expenses but they have to exceed a certain %age of your income. </p>
<p>We also have to pay a portion of our health insurance. Not deductible…neither is your car insurance (unless you are using your car for business and then a portion would be deductible as a business expense), or homeowners insurance. I don’t believe ANY insurance payments are deductible on your taxes.</p>
<p>If you paid for a health insurance policy out of your own pocket separate from any company, your premiums and out of pocket medical expenses over 7.5% of your AGI can be deducted. If you paid for insurance pre-tax through a company, then it can’t. Even then, if you don’t have mortgage interest, property tax and other deductions, your itemized deductions won’t likely exceed your standard deduction.</p>
<p>A tax program would walk you through all of this to get to whatever is to your best advantage.</p>
<p>At work, we often get these types of questions - how come my co-worker can deduct all these things and I can’t. You choose between the standard deduction or itemized deduction. With the itemized deduction, you add up various deductions, including taxes you paid (state taxes, property taxes and personal property taxes), mortgage interest, medical expenses above 7.5%, and business expenses above 2%). </p>
<p>While a tax program would in fact walk you through all of this, I would advise going to a paid tax preparer, and insist that they explain everything - that’s what you’re paying for when you go to them. People who don’t understand their tax returns often make mistakes, even with well designed software, and they can sometimes be costly. If you do use the software, I would suggest having a tax pro look over it once you’re done. The large tax prep companies will do this for free, but will charge if you have to amend your return. (full disclosure - I work for one of those large companies).</p>
<p>A agree with CTScoutmom. I think you would be well advised to pay a tax preparer to do your taxes for this year at least. You seem to have a lot of confusion about taxes, and if you have a tax preparer do your taxes this time and explain them to you it may give you some beneficial insight for the future.</p>
<p>My first thought was you should just use tax software, it really seems easy to use for your rather straight forward taxes (though it may not seem that way to you). You could take your time going through it and educate yourself quite well. Forty years of doing my own taxes makes me appreciate how easy it is now with software programs, but if you want to understand your taxes you need to invest your time. Maybe your time is more valuable and you want to pay someone to do it, but you really should get some understanding of how taxes work if you want to optimize how you earn, spend and invest your money. Good luck.</p>
<p>jtmoney…I’m with you on this one</p>