The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) has reshaped the landscape of tax deductions for employees. Understanding these changes is crucial to optimizing your tax strategy and ensuring you make the most of available deductions.

Working for yourself can have a lot of benefits, but taxes are generally not one of them. When self-employed, you are typically left picking up the tab on some of the costs your employer otherwise would have covered, including Social Security and Medicare tax, not to mention an office setup and maybe even a company car.

Donations to charity can be tax-deductible if you donated to an IRS-recognized charity in 2024 and did not receive anything in return.