with respect to a State or local income tax imposed for a taxable year beginning after December 31, 2017,

Doesn’t talk about property taxes. In my case, I receive property tax bill in Sep or something like that with 1st installment due in Dec and 2nd in April. I feel comfortable in paying off my April payment this year and claiming it on 2017 taxes.

However, in some states (at least) you can pay more estimated 2017 taxes today and carry over any overpayment to 2018 on your 2017 tax return. Technically, that wouldn’t seem to be a prepayment, rather an overpayment since when you make the payment you are designating it as payment of 2017 taxes (it is “with respect to 2017” when you make it). I live in NY and it appears that the NY tax form IT-201 has a line entry to carryover an overpayment to the following year, and you can pay estimated taxes online.

Really speaking that is a refund that you are electing not to be refunded. You will get a 1099-misc for that extra payment anyway. This is exactly what the “text from conference” that you highlighted is trying to preclude. They don’t want mega-millionaires to go pay all their 2018 state taxes on Dec 30th, 2017.

BTW - mortgage interest is still deductible under AMT - so that would still have a nice value now versus next year and more than even a paid toothbrush.

Before you take any of these steps, understand whether you are subject to AMT or not. If subject to AMT, these ideas may not be useful. Since the new tax bill will steer most people into standard deduction, the goal here is to move some things from 2018 into 2017 and take advantage of it this year versus never getting to use it.

1. Prepay your January mortgage payment in December. Make sure that you do it right so that the lender doesn’t think it is just another principal payment. This will allow you to move the mortgage interest from Jan into 2017.

2. If you pay state taxes, use your tax software to estimate your taxes for 2017. Ensure that you have paid those taxes in 2017. This will allow deduction in 2017.

3. Same thing with property taxes - if you have an early 2018 payment, pay it in 2017.

For some of these early payments, apply for some new credit cards - you still have time. Use these cards to prepay items #2/#3 and reach your spend requirements. Yes - you may be charged a 2.5% fee for paying by credit card - but the rewards from reaching minimum spend will offset the 2.5%. Also, most credit cards give you at least 1%. So you spend 1.5% extra, reach minimum spend, collect a nice reward and send a cut to me.

Do not try to pay your 2018 income tax in 2017 - that won’t work as per the new bill.

Consider getting rid of your mortgage. I am seriously evaluating that. Until now, since the mortgage interest was tax deductible, I wasn’t really paying much (after tax advantage). But now for all practical purposes, people with small mortgages won’t be able to deduct - so if your mortgage rate is 4%, you will be paying 4% with no tax benefit. By prepaying, think of it as investing money at 4% guaranteed tax free rate.

This stuff is lot more money than a free toothbrush or free redbox movie code. So prioritize this!

Additions since original post:

1. For future, consider lumping of deductions. Example, pay 2018 property taxes/charitable in 2019 so that you take standard deduction in 2018 but itemized in 2019.

2. For accelerating income/stock transactions, see the companion thread with heading, “Should you accelerate income/stock gains to 2017 due to tax changes?”.

Check your extracare card online - very likely you have a $10/$40 coupon. All 3 of my CVS accounts have it - one account that I used recently and one account that I haven’t used in months - so high probability that you have it too on your account.

You are reading my post - the $9.00 comes from 15% discount.

The top of the rebate form says, “…with a $50 purchase…”.

So if somebody did a transaction with HOME10 and 20% off, it will drop the price below $50. It is too late anyway for the 20% - but if somebody was buying only 1 luggage, then Home10/20% off is probably better than dealing with rebate house. But by using 15% off coupon, the discounted price is $51 - so that stays above the $50 purchase price. And the deal should still be live versus the 20% that is expired.

BF deal live now. Small time window where you have the 20% coupon work with BF deals.

If anybody in the market for luggage, Skyway Oasis looks like an excellent deal. $59.99 - $9.00 (don’t use the 20% coupon - it will mess up the rebate since rebate requires $50+ purchase after discounts). $51 - $10 rebate - $2.50 (Chase Freedom) - $2.50 Ebates - $15 Kohls Cash = $21 + Tax on higher amount. I don’t think anybody else can beat this price.

I had received in physical mail a couple of $5 coupons which said “in store” only. They had a code and a pin. Turns out that they can be used online and they work like Kohl’s cash. I just did this and unfortunately, if you have them, you probably have only a 20 minute window to use them. I had two of them and both worked on the same order.

In my opinion, this is better than any previous program offers and is totally crazy. I have been buying Powerade for about 70cents for each bottle and somehow, they decided that each code is worth 50 cents. I wish I got such things more.

So what is the deal with multiple accounts? Must have different physical address?

America’s Tire competes really well with Costco during their sale events - e.g. labor day, memorial day. Next one might be near black Friday - don’t know. I prefer America’s tire - seems really easy to get rotation every 6K miles. Don’t have direct experience with Costco rotation policies but I heard that it is first come first served - that can be crazy. America’s tire will do it with appointments.

Yes, we charge everything, and I have it set so that all bills are paid in full, automatically every month - I track it all in Quicken.

I hope people will get over this fascination/addiction to tracking things in Quicken - what purpose does it serve? I charge everything, I forward pay my bills, the credit card companies auto magically withdraw their payments from my brokerage account which can never be overdrawn. Periodically, I will glance at my monthly transactions to make sure I recognize something - but other than that, everything is on auto pilot with no tracking. For that matter, what is quicken?