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Under United States tax law, itemized deductions are eligible expenses that individual taxpayers can claim on federal income tax returns and which decrease their taxable income, and are claimable in place of a standard deduction, if available.
Most taxpayers are allowed a choice between itemized deductions and the standard deduction. After computing their adjusted gross income (AGI), taxpayers can itemize deductions (from a list of allowable items) and subtract those itemized deductions from their AGI amount to arrive at the taxable income. Alternatively, they can elect to subtract the standard deduction for their filing status to arrive at the taxable income. In other words, the taxpayer may generally deduct the total itemized deduction amount or the applicable standard deduction amount, whichever is greater.
The choice between the standard deduction and itemizing involves a number of considerations:
Deductions are reported in the tax year in which the eligible expenses were paid. For example, an annual membership fee for a professional association paid in December 2009 for the year 2010 is deductible in the year 2009.
The United States has a comparatively large and complicated number of deductions owing to policymakers' preference to pass policy through the tax code.
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