It's tax season again. As always, people start to reach out and want to see if there is any way they can save some taxes for last year. My answer to them is always this: you are asking the right question but at the wrong time. Tax planning for a year needs to be done way before December 31 of that year, not the following year. You could learn some of the tax planning strategies from my previous blog post "10 Tax Planning Opportunities Before Year-End For Individuals". Having said that, there are still three things that you may be able to do before the tax due date to improve your tax situation now or in the long run.

The tax due date of the current year is in April of the following year. However, when it comes to tax planning, you should not wait until then. Tax planning is different than tax preparation which I covered in my previous blog post here. There are some tax planning opportunities you can only take advantage of before December 31. This week I will only cover individuals. Business owners will be covered in a different post.