Itemized deduction
eligible expense that individual taxpayers in the United States can report on their Federal income tax returns
Under United States tax law, itemized deductions are eligible expenses that individual taxpayers can claim on federal income tax returns and which decrease their taxable income, and are claimable in place of a standard deduction, if available.
Most taxpayers are allowed a choice between itemized deductions and the standard deduction. After computing their adjusted gross income (AGI), taxpayers can itemize deductions (from a list of allowable items) and subtract those itemized deductions from their AGI amount to arrive at the taxable income. Alternatively, they can elect to subtract the standard deduction for their filing status to arrive at the taxable income. In other words, the taxpayer may generally deduct the total itemized deduction amount or the applicable standard deduction amount, whichever is greater.
The choice between the standard deduction and itemizing involves a number of considerations:
Only a taxpayer eligible for the standard deduction can choose it.
U.S. citizens and aliens who are resident for tax purposes are eligible to claim the standard deduction. Nonresident aliens are not eligible.
If the taxpayer is filing as "married, filing separately," and his or her spouse itemizes, then the taxpayer cannot claim the standard deduction. In other words, a taxpayer whose spouse itemizes deductions must either itemize as well or claim "0" (zero) as the amount of the standard deduction.
The public source identifies “Itemized deduction” as eligible expense that individual taxpayers in the United States can report on their Federal income tax returns. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Itemized, deduction and eligible.
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This entry incorporates text from “Itemized deduction” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.