2020 Standard Deduction: Another Boost Is Coming
The goal of tax planning is to pay as little as you can to Uncle Sam. Unfortunately, some tax planning is complicated and expensive to implement, and it doesn't make sense to spend huge amounts of time and money if the tax savings you'll get from your efforts isn't all that big.
One way lawmakers acknowledge that trade-off is by giving taxpayers a standard deduction. The popular tax provision keeps people from having to keep track of all the expenses that they'd be eligible to deduct as itemized deductions over the course of the year. But it's also big enough that it's actually the best choice for most people. That's a big part of why the vast majority of taxpayers claim the standard deduction rather than itemizing.
Big changes came to the standard deduction in 2018 as a result of tax reform, but increases haven't been as big since then. 2020's boost won't produce huge amounts of additional savings, but it'll still be an incremental benefit to tens of millions of taxpayers as they consider their tax planning.
Source Fool.com
