I'm sorry for your loss, vickij. When my father died, my brother took the deduction on the items we donated because it was more beneficial in his tax situation than ours. However..... my DH is now telling me that was not *proper* although to my knowledge, my brother has had no issues with the IRS - probably because the donation was not significant enough to trigger any IRS alarms. According to my DH, you must take possession of the items at least until the estate is settled, possibly longer, before you can donate as yours and take a deduction. Otherwise, the deduction rightfully belongs to the estate. PLEASE check this out with a CPA or your tax adviser - my DH is a business owner and has a lot of experience with various tax situations but is not an expert.

from irs.gov... Campaign Expenses You cannot deduct campaign expenses of a candidate for any office, even if the candidate is running for reelection to the office. These include qualification and registration fees for primary elections. Legal fees. You cannot deduct legal fees paid to defend charges that arise from participation in a political campaign.

If you are part owner of the house, you are entitled to deduct the part of the mortgage interest that corresponds with the part of your ownership -- if half, then half. And your friend can deduct the other half. If you get audited, the only justification you would need to support your deduction is proof of home ownership as joint tenants and proof from the bank statement that the interest was paid. I do not believe you will be asked to "prove" that you actually personally paid the mortgage interest. The only time when such a proof would be required in an audit (I think!) is if there were suspicion of fraud, like if the total interest deducted by more than one person exceeded the actual interest paid. The IRS receives from the bank copies of the mortgage interest paid. So if the bank statment and the total deducted by you and your boyfriend are in agreement, there should be no problem. As to your other question, about the tax credit, go to the IRS website > and do a search on "first time home buyer" or some similar term. The website is vast, and it will probably take a lot of hunting before you find document you are looking for. Read it very closely to see if it addresses your particular situation. If it does not, you can take a chance and put in for a HALF tax credit, half because only you are a first home buyer, and hope for the best. But be prepared to be questioned on it, and be prepared to pay back the credit, if it was given to you, plus interest. Alternatively, you could call the IRS 800#, and ask your question. In my limited experience, the answer you get depends on your luck. You might get someone who knows the code well and can give you a helpful, informed answer. OR, you might get someone who will read to you verbatim the wording in the code that you yourself could get from the website. Don't forget the IRS code is very complicated, so complicated that even tax experts make mistakes.

I use Turbo Tax and it is fast enough for my purposes, but then, I alway buy a copy and install it on my computer. I never connect to the internet when I'm inputting tax data and fiddling with different scenarios. Also, I file by mail thus avoiding the electronic filing charge and any hacker that may be snooping my data stream. For backup records, I keep a paper copy and all the work sheets and the computer files. After I've filed, I will archive Turbo Tax and all its files and remove it from the computer. The main hassle I have is that the state code is not on the CD and must be downloaded from the web site. This takes forever over a dial-up connection. For those who have a high speed connection, this is not a concern.