Taxes have never been a huge issue for me, my average income over the past 5 years has been $40-50k/yr putting me in a low tax bracket with not much of a burden. A career change this year has blessed me with an opportunity to make more money, and now being in a higher tax bracket I am looking at every way possible of lowering the tax bill at the end of the year. One of the biggest challenges I am facing is my employers 20% of base salary cap to 401k contributions. Commission is considered supplemental income and our company does not allow deferrals. I pleaded with HR and they will under no circumstance allow us to contribute more than 20% of base pay, for no good reason.
This means for 2015 I can only contribute $9,400 of the IRS imposed $18,000 limit to my 401k.
I have a HDHP and am contributing $3,300 which is the limit for single individuals.
Other than that I have no idea how to lower my tax burden, there is a good chance I will hit the 2015 limit for traditional IRA tax deduction which I believe is $71,000/yr. If I make below that I guess I could re-categorize my Roth IRA to traditional before doing taxes.
I have no kids, I rent, no taxable investments, no other tax deductions I could think of. If you were in my shoes, could you think of other ways to lower the tax bill?