Tax Tips Contest

Congratulation to Stephen Grimes, who is the winner of the H&R Block Giveaway Contest. He will be receiving a copy of H&R Block At Home Deluxe (formerly known as TaxCut) which includes tax preparation for both federal and state returns.

His tax tip was to harvest stock losses, saying "I did this a year ago near market bottom, and I will be deducting $3000 per year off my income tax for five years!!"

Here are some of the other tax tips I've received (as well as some of my own).

• File your taxes for free online. Many websites offer free online filing if you meet their criteria.
• Buy a copy of J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax or the Ernst & Young Tax Guide to help with understanding tax laws and with preparing your taxes. Better yet, check out a copy of either one from your local library for free.
• Contribute the most you can to a 401(k) plan at work.
• Read PFStock and other personal finance blogs. (I think that this contributor has his own personal finance blog.)

The contest is over now, but if you have any other good tax or money saving suggestions that you would like to share, I encourage you to leave a comment below.

If you missed out on the H&R Block At Home giveaway, I do have a couple $10 rebate coupons good through 4/15/10. The rebate is for $10 off of an H&R Block At Home Deluxe or higher purchase from these stores: Amazon.com, Best Buy, Target, Office Depot, Microcenter, Staples, and Fry's Electronics. If you are interested, Email me your mailing address (my Email is shown in the sidebar of my blog). I will cover the postage to send it to you, but this offer is limited to the first two responses that I get since I only have two coupons.

See Also: When Will I Get My Refund?

PFS