Income tax refund: five tips for maximizing it

3. Invest in your retirement plan

Mary Knox Merrill/The Christian Science Monitor/File
David Savory (right) helps Bouchra Bouzidi file her taxes as part of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston in this 2010 file photo. One way you can still boost your income tax refund this year is to make a 2011 contribution to a traditional IRA.

Investing in your 401(k) or Individual Retirement Account (IRA) can increase your tax refund and fund a more comfortable retirement nest egg. A Roth 401(k) or IRA lets you build your account and withdraw your funds tax-free in retirement. A traditional 401(k) or IRA lets you take a tax break immediately and defer taxes until you withdraw your funds in your golden years. Be sure to find out what your maximum yearly contribution limits are and develop a monthly deposit plan to ensure that you can maximize the benefits of those accounts. Remember you have until April 17, 2012, to make a contribution to your traditional IRA and still boost your 2011 tax refund.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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