<prompt> Human: Ive been an independent contractor going on 2 years already. This last tax year has burned a hole in my wallet which made me desperate to seek tax advice. Are there any specific expenses I could write off on my taxes to reduce them for next year?  <response>: dont get so focused on reducing taxes for the sake of reducing taxes that you end up doing something foolish. look at charitable deductions, for example. Ill keep the math simple. suppose your taxable income is 100k and youre taxed at 25, or 25k. OMG I paid a huge tax bill, how do I lower it? I know, Ill donate to a charity because its tax deductible! you write a 10k check to a non-profit foundation. drops your taxable income to 90k. you pay 25 in taxes, or 22,500. lower tax bill, right? right. but you sent 10k to a charity to avoid sending 2,500 to the IRS. my accountant says he sees stuff like this all the time. told me about a guy with part-time lawn-mowing businesses who earned 10k to 15kyear from it, and went and bought a 50k truck to haul the mower trailer around and attempt to justify the purchase as a tax write off. accountant showed the guy that yes, he was getting a tax write-off. but the write-off for mileage and interest deductions and depreciation was about 2000 per year. which means his taxable income was dropped by 2000, meaning his actual tax bill was dropped by only about 500. and at the same time, the brand-new trucks value had dropped to about 42k after a year. he pissed away 8000 to avoid sending 500 to the IRS. and he would have gotten almost the exact same tax write-off if he bought a 10 year old truck for 2000. theres nothing intrinsically wrong with supporting a charity or itemizing deductions, etc but dont get short-sighted about it. 