Posted on: Wednesday, February 14, 2001
Donations-tracking software handy at tax time
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| The It’s Deductible software tracks and values your donations, helping to reduce your income tax bill. |
For most of us, the brain is an unreliable record-keeper. We can’t remember what we did last week, let alone last year. That’s why things like receipts exist, come tax season.
Even with the paper trail, though, it helps to know what you’re looking for. Among strategies for reducing your income tax bill, charitable deductions are typically underused.
The chilling prospect of appearing before an IRS auditor unarmed with proof of donations keeps lots of folks from making uncertified claims.
Try out It’s Deductible, and you might be surprised by your own generosity.
This piece of donations-tracking software ($29.95, downloadable or on CD-ROM, from www.itsdeductible.com) shows potential as a tax-time helpmate.
An enticing feature in the 2000 version, a valuation table to help you compute donations of used goods, is not yet in the Tax Year 2001 edition, but those who buy it now are promised a free upgrade.
The program is easy to use, with user-friendly menus of deductions allowed under federal law.
There are printable worksheets to serve as documentation for pleasing a hard-nosed auditor.
And ease of use is important. You have to log things regularly for this to work.
In trying it out, this Advertiser taxpayer tried to reconstruct a list of donated items contributed only days ago. But she couldn't remember what she did last week, let alone last year.
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