The IRS might turn a suspicious eye on you if your claimed deductions are higher than what’s normal for your income level. Compare your deductions against the average to gauge your audit risk or see if you’re missing any deductions.
A large charitable donation is among the IRS red flags, but that depends on your income level. A charitable gifts deduction of $3,000 would be unusual for a person with under $50K adjusted gross income (AGI), but not unusual for someone in the $100K and above brackets. Also, the higher your income, the higher your mortgage and real estate taxes would likely be.
If your deductions are much higher than the average for your AGI, double-check them to make sure they’re correct. If they’re much lower, check to make sure you’re including everything.
Don’t let the averages below stop you from taking the deductions you’re entitled to—just make sure you have everything you need to back up the claims. Getting audited is no fun, but a little organization can help even if that happens.
Here’s the chart from Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting US, based on IRS preliminary data for 2015:
Average Itemized Deductions | Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting
It doesn’t break down taxes or include some other deduction categories, so here’s another chart from The Motley Fool, based on 2011 data:
Are Your Tax Deductions Bigger Than the Average American’s? | The Motley Fool
And another chart from Forbes, which breaks down the $100K-200K category and is also based on 2011 data:
Tax Deduction Audit Risk | Forbes
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