"clifto" <clifto@gmail.com> wrote
> Back when sales taxes were deductible, we started keeping and tallying
> receipts and were able to document (and thus deduct) about eight times
> what the government allowed as a standard claim, every year. If the
> gov't allows $30 for the excise taxes, I wouldn't doubt that 25% of
> people could deduct $200 or more with proper documentation.




I would doubt it.

I've only had one individual client (a pack rat) who added up the federal
excise tax on all 33 months of phone bills and got about $100 for his
(secretary's) effort. He's single, so would have received a standard rebate
of $30. He did make a large number of calls to Arizona and Europe during
that time frame, so he knew in his head it would be higher than the standard
gimmie.

I don't know how many people make a lot of long distance phone calls on a
regular enough basis to make that much difference, but I doubt it's 25% of
the population.




Most of my small business returns are claiming in the $200 range from either
actual numbers or the short-cut method.





--
Paul Thomas, CPA
paulthomascpapc@bellsouth.net