Daddy's Little Tax Deductions

Todd loves tax time. I get excited to check the mail at Christmas time, he gets excited in January - waiting to see if we got any of the paperwork we need to file our taxes. Todd doesn't get bonuses, so our tax return kind of takes the place of one. It determines where we'll go on vacation, or if we'll go at all. It tells us if we can do a little project on the house, or maybe two. And more recently, if Ella will be staying at private school... When I was pregnant with Dawson, he kept teasing me that I messed up since my due date was January 14th, too late to claim him as a dependent. We got lucky when he arrived in December, and now we have 2 more Rufflings to add so he was happily clicking away on his little calculator. A word of caution though: DO NOT have babies just for the purpose of claiming them for the child tax credit. The cost of raising them/tax credit ratio is not in your favor, I guarantee you won't break even.