Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Avoiding common tax-filing mistakes



Today is a tax-season milestone. There's just one week left until your 1040 is due.



Yep, you've put off filing for 14 weeks. While you've been enjoying all this time tax-free, a major problem with delaying filing until the last minute is that when you do finally get around to filling out the paperwork, you might be in such a hurry that you make a costly mistake.



To help you avoid that, here are 10 common tax errors to be on the lookout for:



  • Tax_tip_icon_pencil_point
    Entering the wrong account in connection with direct deposit of your refund.


  • Claiming the wrong hybrid credit.


  • Not counting all your charitable contributions.


  • Missing out on the PMI deduction.


  • Overlooking ; unearned income.


  • Making math miscalculations. ;


  • Misentering or forgetting Social Security numbers.


  • Ignoring IRS mailing material.


  • Forgetting signatures.


  • Missing the filing deadline.


Details on each of these errors can be found in this story I wrote for Bankrate.



Some other bloggers also offer their takes on common tax mistakes:





So even though time is short, slow down a bit so that you don't end up making one of these mistakes and costing yourself in the process.



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