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When it’s time to file your federal tax, a 1040 tax return form is the form that you will need to complete and submit to the IRS. Before attempting to fill out your IRS form 1040, you should carefully review all of the information that is located in the form 1040 instruction booklet. The instruction booklet contains valuable information about who is required to file, when and where you should file your taxes as well as line by line instructions on how to properly fill out your form 1040 tax return.
Filling Out Your 1040 Tax Return
You will be required to enter basic information; such as your name, Social Security number, address, filing status (married or single), etc. Keep in mind that even if you are unmarried, if you pay to support people that live with you, you may be able to file as head of household, which may give you additional deductions and lower your tax rates.
Determining Exemptions
The next section of the IRS form 1040 deals with qualified exemptions. Typically, you should be entitled to one exemption for yourself, one for your spouse and one for each of your children or dependents. However, you should be aware that if a person is listed as an exemption on another tax return they may not be eligible to be included on your tax return.
Income Reporting
In the next section of your IRS tax return, you will be required to enter income information. You will be required to enter the types and amounts of income you receive during the tax year from such sources such as: wages, salaries and tips. This information is generally provided to you on the W-2 form provided by your employer.
Deductions and Adjusted Gross Income
Next, you'll be required to enter any legitimate deductions that you may have. Deductions may include contributions to an IRA, school tuition and fees and expenses or even medical expenses. You should check the IRS 1040 instruction booklet to see what other types of conduct deductions you may claim. Be aware that any deduction should have supporting documents, such as receipts or invoices or even canceled checks.
Other Required Information
The rest of the 1040 tax form deals with the amount of tax you owe as well as any income tax credits that you may be of that eligible for. Tax credits differ from tax deductions in that they decrease the amount of tax that you owe - rather than only decrease your taxable income. In this section you will also be required to enter the amount of tax that you owe.
Payment and Refund Information
The last part of the form deals with entering payment amount information as well as refund amount information. Generally speaking, this section allows you to sum up all of your taxes and tax credits, and determine if you owe taxes or if you are entitled to a refund.
If the sum of your payments including credits is greater than your total tax you'll be entitled to a refund. If the sum of your payments including tax credits is less than your total tax you will be required to pay that amount to the IRS.
The final steps are signing your return, reviewing it for accuracy and then mailing it to the IRS. Always make sure that you make several copies of your return for your own records.
