included “points” on the loan. A point is a fee charged by the lender. One point equals one percent of the loan. If you paid points, you can deduct a percentage of them on your taxes. Assume you have a 30 year loan. You can deduct 1/30th of the points paid each year. Admittedly, that is not a huge number, but things change if you refinanced or paid off an old mortgage.

Assume you purchased a home in 2002 and paid point on the loan. In January of 2006, you refinanced your home. The points you paid on the original loan can now be deducted in full minus any previous deductions you took. For many homeowners, that is a nice round number.

My lord, going to college is getting expensive. Well, the government is going to give you a tax break on such expenses. As long as you didn’t earn over $65,000 as a single filer or $130,000 as joint filers, you can deduct as much as $4,000 for higher education expenses. The expenses have to be tied to the education, to wit, tuition and books, etc. Costs associated with joining a fraternity do not count.

Going green with your cars makes tremendous sense for a number of reasons include tax savings. Buying a hybrid used to give you a juicy tax deduction of $2,000 or so. Happily, this is no longer the case. Why do I say happily? Because it has been turned into a tax credit. Tax credits are more power than deductions because they are a reduction of the actual amount of tax you are supposed to pay, not your gross income. Check with the IRS to find out the tax credit for your particular hybrid.

Many people feel tax deductions are slowly being done away with. While many loopholes have been closed, there are still plenty of deductions you can claim to cut your tax bill.

Richard A. Chapo is with BusinessTaxRecovery.com - providing information on tax deductions.

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