You’ve still got about six months before you really have to start worrying about your taxes, right? If you don’t want to reduce your tax bill, that’s true. But if you want to see if you can bring down your taxes a little, it’s worth thinking about in advance.

Tax-Free Days

Several states have a day or two where they don’t charge sales tax. These sales tax holidays are often timed to go with ‘Back to School’ sales. It’s worth looking into whether your state (or any state in easy driving distance) has a sales tax holiday before the end of the year.

It’s easy to forget that any sales tax you pay goes to the government, just like your income tax. It isn’t really part of the price of anything you buy. If you can at least cut back that amount by a bit, why wouldn’t you want to?

Your Home

There are a whole stack of tax deductions that go along with owning or buying a home. Your mortgage interest, along with any points fee you paid to your lender is tax deductible. If you have a home equity loan, you can deduct that as well.

I previously wrote about the tax credit available for first-time home buyers this year. I wouldn’t suggest buying a house just to take advantage of that credit, but it may help you take advantage of other tax breaks.

If you already own a home and you’ve been considering some renovations, you might want to get them done before the end of the year — especially if you’re looking at greening your home. You can write off the interest on a home improvement loan. If you make your home more energy efficient, install solar panels or otherwise go green, there are a wide variety of tax credits and rebates you can qualify for on both the state and federal levels.

Your Business

If you don’t already run your own business, it may be time to consider opening up shop. The list of business expenses you can write off for a home business is extensive: you can write off a percentage of your utility bills and mortgages, along with the full cost of just about anything you need to run your business.

It’s simple to set up a sole proprietorship and you don’t have to have a fancy operation to get the tax deductions. Selling stuff on eBay is enough to qualify you — and you might just make some money on top of reducing your taxes.

Do Some Research

Giving tax advice over the internet can be a bit problematic: because everyone’s tax situation is different, I wouldn’t recommend that you immediately set out on any of these plans. Instead, do a little checking and make sure that you understand what you have to do to qualify for any particular tax deduction or credit. The IRS’ website is a good place to start — all of the paperwork you might need is available online. If the rules and regulations seem a little complex though, it might be worthwhile to consult a tax professional.