Tax Crunch Time is Over: Plan Now for 2007!

Feeling stressed about the tax filing deadline?

Here's why you should always think about your precious eyesight whenever the time rolls around for preparing your income taxes:

Those tax forms get more crowded, more complex every year. Some of the type is pretty small. If you are 40 and older you might need some reading glasses.

You can pay for those reading glasses with funds from your pre-tax Flexible Spending Account.

Of course, if during 2006 you made any kind of charitable contribution to a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping those with vision problems you might qualify for a generous tax deduction. (It's not too early to be thinking about 2007!)

While we're on the subject of vision research, the National Eye Institute (NIH) has an annual budget of nearly $700M to fund scientific research that explores the causes and treatments of eye disorders. Guess where that money came from? Yep, your income taxes!

Finally, people keep asking me about tax relief for the legally blind. Years ago, as a consequence of the so-called 'reform' of our income tax program, Congress eliminated the additional personal exemption awarded to folks with severe visual field loss or whose best-corrected eyesight was 20/200 or worse in the better eye. Our clinic was always busy during March and April generating signed statements that qualifying taxpayers included with their IRS returns. In the final analysis tax reform may not have saved much money for the visually impaired but my office staff was refunded lots of lost time by no longer preparing all that IRS paperwork.

I wish I had more time to write but, you guessed it, I haven't finished my taxes yet either!

Related Topics:

• How to Cope With Tax-Time Stress
• Cut the Stress, Simplify Your Life