<prompt> Human: We are husband and wife, no kids and we rent a cheap apartment. We filed a 1040 and everything was based on the standard deductions. Are there any legal strategies that we could do to lower our tax burden?Edit: the 20K is state federal taxes. not including medicare, ss, etcEdit2: Thank you for all your responses!!!  <response>: You can both contribute to 401k up to 18k each if your employers offer that option. If you dont have access to 401k, each one of you can contribute 5,500 to traditional IRA and save on taxes that way. Since you rent, you cant really itemize deduction hard to come up to over 12,200 without mortgage interest deduction, and other than retirement contributions, and HSA if youre enrolled in qualified health plan, there is not much you can do to lower your taxes. 