Make the Most of Your Tax Refund & File for Free

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of eSmart Tax.
All opinions are 100% mine.

If you haven’t filed your taxes yet, you are definitely not alone. We have been getting our paperwork together all week. The good news is, our sponsor wants you to file for free. You can complete & file your federal taxes online with E-Smart Tax. Their basic federal program is always free, but I love their Deluxe option.

Is your last name Johnson? In honor of the everyday American and their new spokesperson, Daryl Johnson, Johnsons file free with the deluxe edition. Johnson is the 2nd most common last name in America (my maiden name holds fast to the number 1 spot!), and E-Smart Tax wants to reward you.

As one of the everyday American taxpayers they celebrate (even though my new last name isn’t quite so everyday), I want to file my taxes quickly, easily and with the best options to pay less taxes. Here are a few strategies we use to ease our tax burden:

• File your own taxes—programs like E-Smart Tax make it easy to do without an accountant.
• Keep good records year round—we use Mint to track our spending on a regular basis. Create tax-related spending categories that will make it easy to pull the totals you need for completing your documents.
• Track your mileage—The IRS allows $.55 per mile for business miles driven, $.24 per mile for medical or moving purposes and $.14 per mile driven to serve charitable organizations. It doesn’t sound like much, but it often adds up to several hundred dollars for us!
• Take the home office deduction—if you work from home, you can deduct the portion of your everyday household expenses relative to the size of your home office. This is a big one, if you have an in-home office.