- Tax Planning
- Introduction
- Understand What Our Leaders Have Said Regarding Taxes
- Understand How Tax Planning Can Help You Attain Your Personal Goals
- Understand the Tax Process and Tax Strategies to Help You Lower Your Taxes
- Step 1: Calculate gross income from all sources minus losses, exclusions, and deferrals
- Step 2: Subtract adjustments to get your adjusted gross income
- Step 3: Subtract itemized or standard deductions (whichever is greater)
- Step 4: Subtract exemptions to get taxable income
- Step 5: Refer to the tax table and calculate your tentative tax
- Step 6: Subtract credits to calculate total tax owed
- Step 7: Subtract taxes paid to get total taxes owed/amount of refund
- Understand How to Minimize Tax Payments for a Given Level of Income
- Understand How To Be More Efficient With Your Taxes
- Understand the Major Tax Features of the US Tax System
- Summary
- Assignments
- Investments 1: Before you Invest
- Investments 2: Your Investment Plan
- Investments 3: Securities Market Basics
- Investments 4: Bond Basics
- Investments 5: Stock Basics
- Investments 6: Mutual Fund Basics
- Investments 7: Building Your Portfolio
- Investments 8: Picking Financial Assets
- Investments 9: Portfolio Rebalancing and Reporting
- Retirement 1: Basics
- Retirement 2: Social Security
- Retirement 3: Employer Qualified Plans
- Retirement 4: Individual and Small Business Plans
- Estate Planning Basics
Step 4: Subtract exemptions to get taxable income
An exemption is a government-determined amount for each person who is supported by the income from a single tax return. This is a specific amount of money that can be deducted for each qualifying person in the household, and the amount changes from year to year. Once you have calculated your AGI, subtract your deductions and exemptions. The resulting total is your taxable income. The following is the last few years of exemption amounts:
| Year | Exemption Amount |
| 2006 | $3,300 |
| 2007 | $3,400 |
| 2008 | $3,500 |
| 2009 | $3,650 |
| 2010 | $3,650 |
