- The Finance Gourmet

HSA Contributions

September 27, 2025September 15, 2025 by Finance Gourmet

A quick reminder not to forget to use your HSA account to pay for ALL of your qualified medical expenses. Remember, you get the deduction based upon CONTRIBUTIONS, and your contributions do NOT have to be made before your expenses are incurred. In other words, if you go to the doctor and get a $180 bill, you can (EVEN AFTER) contribute $180 to your HSA account. Pay the $180 doctor bill (maybe using a rewards credit card), and THEN reimburse yourself the $180 expense. This is the best way to deduct medical expenses if you qualify. Otherwise, remember that you can only deduct medical expenses that are 10% above your adjusted gross income. With an HSA account, every contribution is deductible, regardless of when you use the money to pay medical bills. Also, any medical bills you pay with your HSA cannot be deducted as medical expenses. Also, HSA paid expenses do not count toward the 7.5% floor needed to deduct medical expenses. Remember, the contribution is deductible, not the expense. Contribute money for every qualified medical expense you have, and the net effect is the same as deducting all of your medical expenses. Remember, unlike a FSA, you can …

Tax Forms for Filing Taxes 2025

September 27, 2025August 9, 2025 by Finance Gourmet

It’s Federal Income Tax Time, here in America. The due date for filing your income taxes, and the dreaded Form 1040 is, as usual, April 15th. (No extra days to file taxes in 2025. Those pesky Washington D.C. holidays have moved on to other days..) But, before you can file your income taxes, you’ll need all the forms and information you need to file. For most taxpayers, the main document you need is a Form W2 from your employer. The W2 form reports not only your wages, but also the amounts that were withheld from your paycheck during the year. If you worked for more than one employer, you would need to get a W2 from each one. If you don’t have a traditional employer, or if you do paid work on the side, you’ll need to collect Form 1099-MISC from all of your clients that paid you more than $600 during 2025. Unfortunately, for people like freelance writers, that means you may have to track down some former clients, especially if you moved and didn’t notify them of your new address. Unlike regular employee types. There are usually no withholdings to report on a 1099 form. Many clients will …

Deduct Small Business Expenses

September 27, 2025January 23, 2025 by Finance Gourmet

Can I deduct my small business? How do I deduct my sole proprietorship business? That’s a question I get a lot from sole proprietors and other small business owners. The trick is that most information about small business taxes reads like it aimed at larger businesses, specifically, those that have employees. However, the same IRS tax rules that apply to those small businesses apply to entrepreneurs running their own single person business or small family business. It’s an important question because small business expense deductions can lower your overall tax rates and move you down a bracket on the tax tables. When Can You Deduct a Business? There is really one simple test that a business must pass to be tax deductible: Is there a profit motive? For the IRS, the sole determination of whether something is a hobby, or a legitimate, tax-deductible business, is whether or not you are doing it for profit, instead of for fun. Of course, it wouldn’t be the IRS without hundreds of pages of rules, regulations, and numerous publications sorting out just what is a deductible profit motive. There is a somewhat legendary tax law case where a man claimed his golf expenses as …

IRS Standard Deduction 2024 and 2025

January 15, 2025October 23, 2024 by Finance Gourmet

What is the standard deduction amount for 2025, and what about 2023 and 2024? (That way I don’t have to go through and delete that data 🙂 The IRS updated the standard deduction number and it’s a little bit higher this year again. When filing income taxes, taxpayers can choose to either itemize tax deductions, or take the standard tax deduction amount. The IRS adjusts how much the standard deduction is each year based upon inflation. The 2025 standard tax deduction amount is a bit higher than the 2024 deduction amount for most taxpayers because of inflation. Capital One Rewards Catalog 2023 Remember, even though you will be filling your taxes in early 2025, those tax returns are for the year 2024, so use the 2024 standard deduction amount on taxes you work on in the first quarter of 2025. When you file your taxes in early 2025, those taxes are for your income and deductions in 2024. Alright, now that we’ve beaten that horse to death, let’s get to some numbers. 2024 Standard Tax Deduction Amount For use when filing your taxes in early 2025. As usual, there are different deduction values depending upon how you file your income …

Basic Taxes Overview 2024

June 12, 2024 by Finance Gourmet

As June 2024 comes to a close Americans everywhere have stopped thinking about taxes, but the real key to paying less in taxes like the rich do is year-round tax planning. So, let’s do a quick overview of tax law in 2024 and how that will affect filing 2024 taxes in 2025. Tax Basics Form 1040 Let’s begin by kicking out anyone who has unusual scenarios of income or assets. This is going to be a basic tax overview for taxpayers that get W-2 forms, or 1099 forms, or own their own small business. If your income comes from something else like royalties, or mining rights, or whatever, this will not apply to you. This is also true if a trust, or other tax situation drives your income or expenses. Frankly, people in this category probably already have accountants, attorneys, or financial managers. Let’s not clog this up with “But what if…” about situations that don’t apply to “average” scenarios. The basic tax form is Form 1040. For the most basic scenarios, that form is the only thing a taxpayer needed to file. For others, a variety of Schedules are required, the results of those schedules are then added in …

Child Tax Credit 2024

June 12, 2024January 27, 2024 by Finance Gourmet

When you file your 2024 taxes in 2025, you may get a tax credit for each child. The Child Tax Credit for 2024 is $2,000 for each qualifying child. However, the Child Tax Credit phases out for higher incomes. You can claim the Child Tax Credit in addition to the Standard Deduction, even if you do not itemize your deductions. You can take the full Child Tax Credit if you are married filing jointly with a modified adjusted gross income under $200,000. For others the threshold is $100,000. Once you make more money than that, the credit starts phasing out. Any biological children aged 16 or younger are eligible if you are married filing jointly. If you are divorced, then who gets to claim the child tax credit was likely part of your final divorce settlement. If your child is 17, be prepared to be screwed over. You get just $500 for your 17-year-olds no matter how childish they act, or the fact that most of them are still in high school. Beyond that, there are a lot of different rules that I’m not going to cover here, but the IRS has a useful tool to determine if your child …

How Long To Keep Tax Returns

February 15, 2023January 18, 2023 by Finance Gourmet

Tax Day is today. Hope you are ready! If you have already filed, there is one more piece of tax business you can attend to before you run off into your summer. Time to shred some old tax returns and documents. IRS Rule For How Long to Keep Taxes The general rule for how long you have to keep your tax returns and other tax records is three years. HOWEVER, this is the IRS we are talking about, so there are some exceptions, and sub-rules to the general rule. First, you need to know when to count from. The 3-year rule counts three years from the date you FILED them. So, if you filed early, you don’t technically have to wait until April 15 (I always do. Better safe than sorry.) On the other hand, if you filed late, whether with an extension or not, you need to keep them for three years from that date. Also, the IRS says you should keep your returns for two years after you paid the tax, so if you ended up paying late, or on some sort of payment plan, be sure to keep them for two years after that tax bill has been …

How To File Colorado Income Tax

January 23, 2023February 16, 2022 by Finance Gourmet

Colorado Income Tax Is Easy These days, the major tax preparation software companies, like Turbo Tax and Tax Cut offer people with easier federal income taxes a way to file for free. They do this for two reasons. First, and foremost, despite the millions of dollars they spend lobbying to keep the IRS itself from providing a free, easy way to file basic income taxes, people are starting to expect such things in the internet age. By getting ahead of the IRS and offering free(ish) tax filing, they can keep a damper on any move to making tax filing without them easier. The other reason is that most people with very easy taxes probably won’t bother with their software anyway. Filing income taxes isn’t hard when you work a single job and just deduct a couple of kids and a mortgage. But there are ways to upsell, or otherwise encourage people to buy, or pay for other services like audit defense. The most common upsell is filing your state income taxes. Colorado State Income Tax Is it worth paying TurboTax to file state returns in Colorado? Probably, not. Colorado State Tax is not that complicated for most Colorado taxpayers. While …

Is Patreon Taxable Income?

January 6, 2023February 15, 2022 by Finance Gourmet

Patreon is a website that allows people to contribute funds to support the work of artists and creators. When you get money, do you have to pay taxes on Patreon? If so, what are the Patreon taxes for creators? Is Patreon tax deductible? Let’s start from the beginning. Is Patreon taxable? What Is Patreon Income? Patreon is deliberately misspelled, likely because patron.com was already taken and whoever owned it wanted too much money for it. A patron, as in patron of the arts, is (or was) a person who supports artists or art causes. The most famous patrons of all time were the Medici family, who supported numerous artists, including Leonardo da Vinci. The idea behind the website is arguably similar. The Patreon website allows people to support “creators” by pledging a certain payment per month. In exchange, the creator may (but is not obligated to) offer various “rewards” for said contributions. The question is are Patreon payments considered taxable income for income tax filing purposes. Is Patreon Tax Deductible? Most Patreon Contributions Not Tax Deductible Let’s start with the easier question. No matter how much you like artists, and no matter how much supporting them feels like a charitable donation, …

Credit Karma Tax Review Free Scam or Good Filing?

September 26, 2022January 3, 2022 by Finance Gourmet

Has it really been five years since Credit Karma started Credit Karma Tax? Credit Karma tax is a free-ish way to file your taxes for free. While Credit Karma tax started out with some bumps it is now old enough to have chased out a lot of the bugs. And it is time to update our Credit Karma tax review. Credit Karma Tax Reviews Complaints CreditKarma.com offers a free tax return service, so it’s time for a Credit Karma tax review. The Credit Karma tax scam concerns are pretty much the same as with the original Credit Karma. You are handing over a lot of personal and financial data. The company has been around long enough to have earned some trust, but concerns about all online financial offerings are real. One main difference between Credit Karma and TurboTax, or other offerings, is that you cannot buy and download an offline version. You will fill out all tax forms online and the hidden Credit Karma tax calculator will perform all the calculations online, behind the scenes. Initial Credit Karma tax reviews are mixed, so let’s take a look. (Make sure you are not on CreditCarma, KreditKarma, or any other variations which …