There are few better ways to decrease your tax bill, and thereby increase you tax refund, than taking advantage of the IRA tax deduction. Assuming you qualify for it, making a contribution to a traditional IRA allows you to reduce your taxable income by as much as $5,500 -- $11,000 if you're married filing jointly.
How big of an impact does this have on your tax liability? Consider this: If you and your spouse earned a combined $90,000 in taxable income last year and didn't contribute to a retirement plan at work, then you could decrease your tax bill by $2,750 simply by transferring $11,000 from your savings account into an IRA account.
Think about that for a second. It's basically the same thing as investing $8,250 into the stock market and getting an immediate 33% return. Take it from someone who writes about investing for a living, that's unheard of -- and particularly when you consider that it carries no risk.
With this in mind, I created the following short presentation, which covers the most important things you need to know about the IRA tax deduction.
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