Don't Mess With Taxes

Had your fill of turkey? Enough already with family bonding?

Take a break and check out some tax moves you can make by Dec. 31 to help cut your 2011 tax bill.

It's this week's Weekly Tax Tip and yes, it's a couple of days late because of Thanksgiving preparations.

But there's still plenty of time to sell stocks that have lost value so you can offset any capital gains. If you have more losses than gains, you can use up to $3,000 of your losses to reduce your ordinary income.

Gifts to your favorite charity can be deducted on your 2011 return as long as you itemize and donate by the end of the tax year.

And if you're a homeowner, paying your property tax bill and your January mortgage in December will give you added amounts to deduct on your Schedule A.

Other tax saving moves to make before the year ends are available to adoptive parents, educators and disaster victims.

Be sure to check out these and other year-end tax options before it's too late to take advantage of them on your 2011 taxes.

More moves on the way: Starting Monday, I'll kick off the ol' blog's annual Year-end Money Moves series.

As in previous years, there will be tips on things to thing about regarding taxes (Monday), investments (Tuesday), retirement (Wednesday), giving (Thursday) and financial details (Friday).

You also might find these items of interest:

• Taking the sting out of stock losses at tax time
• Deductions demand documentation
• Tax relief for disaster victims