Property\School Tax Question The deadline to pay your 2006 property\school taxes is January 31, 2007. If you send in your payment after 2006 does that still go on your 2006 tax return? One of the question when doing your taxes is how much property\school tax did you pay in 2006. Technically if you sent in your payment after 2006 that means you did not pay any taxes in 2006. Also, they did not include my homestead exemption so I had to send in an application for the exemption. So which tax amount do I report? The amount that is on my current bill or the adjusted amount once I receive my homestead exemption. They mentioned that it could take 8-10 weeks before I receive an adjustment. I am not sure how much adjusted amount will be so do I have to wait that long before I can do my taxes?
You deduct the taxes in the year that you actually pay them and for the amount you actually pay. If you get an adjustment in the following year then you adjust the amount of taxes that you pay in that year. Depending on your tax situation you basically get to choose if you want the deduction in '06 or '07. Sometimes it is better to pay 2 years of taxes in the same year (pay '06 in Jan '07 & then pay '07 in Dec '07) in order to optimize your deductions.
That pay two years only works once, usually when you're a first time homebuyer...once you itemize, you need it every year...I have to pay mine next week so I can claim it on my 06 tax return...Ah, the joys of home ownership...
That is mostly incorrect....you would be able to make the deduction every other year. But depending on your tax situation it is sometimes the best way to go. That said, it is frequently the best in the first year of home ownership as you may not have paid enough in mortgage interest to itemize.
That is what I mean...I, for example, am better off to have the deduction every year...In fact, I need it...every other year doesn't work for me, and I would imagine, not alot of other people as well...But I'm not tax expert...
since they left off my homestead exemption my bill was around $5400 but once they recalculate with the homestead exemption it should be about $1300 less. do i go ahead and pay the $5400 and claim what i actually should be paying ($4100) on my tax return or claim the $5400 since thats what i paid?
Like I said it depends on your tax situation. When I was in public accounting I did a lot of returns where poeple bunched their deduction in alternating years & it saved them some $. I was just throwing that out there as an option for him to look esp. with the standard deduction what it is now.
