Five often overlooked tax deductions

It's tax season, and no matter what type of filer you are: the second you receive all your documents because you are expecting a large refund, or late because you know you will end up owing money, this particularly American experience causes a wide range of emotions among the population. Many families look forward to this season because the windfall of money they expect to receive, others dread it because the complication and cost is only going to take away from more important things, like Keeping up with the Kardashians, or the Real Housewives of Atlanta. And those complications are small if you consider how in-depth and cumbersome the taxes of a small business can be for their owners. The emotional response and complexities aside, here are some tips to help increase your refund, or at least lower your tax burden.

* Tools and Uniforms: If your job requires you to buy tools in order to perform the work, or requires a certain type of clothing that is not suitable for every day wear, these items are deductible expenses.

* Un-reimbursed or partially reimbursed business expenses: Did your meal you took your customer out to cost more than the company gave you? Save your receipt and you can deduct the difference. Did you buy a happy birthday card for that client out of your own pocket? Save your receipt. The little things you buy in conjunction with your work may not be much at the time, but they can add up to be a lot over a year. This includes places you drive for work in your personal vehicle, and the fuel you pay.

* Work from home: This one is a bit more complicated. According to IRS guidelines, the area in your home you use for work has to be used EXCLUSIVELY for business purposes, otherwise it's not tax deductible. However, if you can dedicate a room or corner of your home to just work, the things you put in there such as the furniture (depreciable asset) and equipment (tools if lifetime is expected to last a year or less), as well as the area of the home itself, can all be deducted. Many tax software programs do this for you, but if you are like me, and you don't have separate utility monitoring for just that portion of your home, the formula essentially takes the square footage of your home that you use for business, treats it as a percentage of the overall size of the house and then multiplies that percentage by the total utility payments you make throughout the year to wrap those into the business expenses.

* Energy Savings credit: This limited but relatively unknown credit exists for people who have installed green energy producing or energy efficiency items in their home. It's capped at $500 for a lifetime, but if you install solar or wind energy generation items, or energy efficient windows, doors, insulation or siding, you can take this deduction.

* State Income Tax deduction: Paid state income taxes last year because your state charges you for the pleasure of being able to work there? The federal government allows you to deduct that expense from your federal taxes.

With the prevalence of tax software available, it's come down to a similar choice on whether you like Hershey's, Godiva, Nestle, or Mars brand of chocolate: they all have essentially the same ingredients and overall purpose, just slightly different flavors. Many of these softwares do a lot of these things for you, and may even walk you through these questions to see if they apply to your situation, but in case you don't use a software that has questionnaire walk-throughs, or prefer to file your forms by hand (like some type of flagellate), keep these options in mind when submitting your tax returns for 2017.