5 Tax Tips You May Be Forgetting

A recent article in The Street offers up a few overlooked but highly effective tax tips for Americans looking to save time and money, from Michael Gutter, an associate business and finances professor at the University of Florida:

1. Get free help. If you earn less than $51,000 per year, you likely qualify for help from the IRS volunteer income tax assistance (VITA) program.

2. Tax credit for kids. The tax code allows plenty of good deductions for parents with children — even kids in college.

3. Direct to savings. Gutter advises having your tax refund sent right to your bank savings account. That protects you from making “impulse purchases.”

4. Take a mulligan. Amend previous years’ tax returns to grab deductions or tax credits you missed the first time.

5. IRA contributions. Gutter reminds tax filers that the deadline for making tax-deductible IRA contributions from income earned in 2012 is April 15.

For more detail, read the full article.