How Much Is The Federal Income Tax Standard Deduction in 2012?

As a tax filer you will have to have figured out your AGI, filing status, state residency and other misc. tax return information before you can really get started filing your tax return. It shouldn't need to be said that you better have all relevant tax paperwork in front of you  or at least figured out before you embark on this perilous mission. So just how much are the federal income tax standard deductions? It would be wise to ask yourself: do I have to take the federal income tax standard deduction? Well if it's going to be bigger than the total of deductions you could otherwise itemize, then yes. Basically you want to take the biggest deduction available to you and for a large number of tax filers the standard deduction offers the most.

Keep in mind, you cannot take the standard deduction if you are filing a tax return with a short tax year, of if you were a nonresident or a dual-status alien during the year, or if you are married filing separately and your spouse files itemized deductions. (bad spouse!).

But how much is the federal income tax standard deduction?  Lets take a peak at the 2011 standard deduction amounts:

As a single tax filer: $5,800
As the head of the household: $8,500
As a married couple filing jointly: $11,600
As a married couple filing separately: $5,800
As a qualifying widow/widower:  $11,600
As a dependent you can get: $950 up to $5,950

A couple points of interest for you, if you are blind as of the last day of the tax filing year and you don't qualify for itemized deductions then you are entitled to a higher standard deduction. Equally, if you are sixty five years old by the last day of the tax filing year then you will also qualify for a higher federal income tax standard deduction.

Resident aliens are allowed to take the income tax standard deduction, but non-resident aliens are not.

No one can take the federal income tax standard deduction and take an itemized deduction. If you have a complicated tax situation, such as owning a business, real estate, and other situations of that nature then it might be in your best interest to take the itemized deduction. It's more work but many people will attest to it being the best way go.

However for those with simple tax returns you may not even have the option of itemizing, you really need to figure out which one will yield a bigger return. So how do you figure how much the federal income tax standard deduction will be versus an itemized deduction? Here we call on technology.

TurboTax online has extensive tax software that you can use for free to determine which method will yield you the biggest results. After all, their "biggest refund guaranteed" are not lightly uttered words. Check out the website today to see how they can guide you towards the proper route of income tax filing.