Military Tax Info

[JoshuaDHarp]

What is the name of your state? OH

Here is the deal.

I was going through TurboTax Deluxe filing for me and my wife. We don't own a home or properties etc. What I am trying to say is that we have it easy when it comes to filing our taxes. The thing I ran across was this deduction for sales tax. (It says its new for 2004) It says "Do you want to see if your sales tax gives you a bigger deduction?" I click yes.

Next page talks about Nontaxable Income. It asks if I have any and lists military basic quarters and substinence allowances. These I have. The problem is I click yes and it asks for the specific amount of bas and bah I earned. There is not document I get from the government or otherwise that I receive other than an Advice of Payment (which I throw out as they come in) that would tell me what these figures are. I guess my question is, do I need to pursue the specifics or can I make a guesstimation and not have any problems. Or is a guesstimation all that they are looking for? Does that make sense....

Anyways thanks for your information.

Josh

 

[Snipes5]

If you don't have a house, you probably aren't itemizing, ie using schedule A.

If you are not, then you don't have to worry about the sales tax deduction. It won't help you, no matter how much your BAS, BAH and uniform allowance amount to.

The information is, however, available to you on your LES.

If you are in housing, it is listed on the left hand side of your LES as BAH, and then listed on the right as "Adequate Quarters", and "deducted".

If you are living on the economy, there won't be an offsetting deduction in column three.

There should also be a notation on your W-2 in box 14 (Other) listing non taxable compensation.

Pay a little more attention to your LES. If you add it up, you're probably getting paid more than you realize.

Just to give you an idea... BAH can range from as little as $9,000 to as much as $35,000 per year for an E-7, depending on where you are living.

Snipes