 Income tax 2023-2024, alimony and IRA deduction. Get ready and some coffee so we can recognize the code cracks when doing income tax preparation 2023-2024. Most of this information can be found in the instructions for schedule one section of the form 1040 instructions taxed year 2023 which you can find on the IRS website at irs.gov irs.gov looking at the income tax formula we're focused online to adjustments to income which you might hear a called above the line deductions or schedule one deductions remember in the first half of the income tax formula is basically a funny income statement typically income statements having income minus expenses resulting in net income here having income minus various deductions resulting in taxable income deductions being good for taxes therefore we're constantly looking for more of them noting the primary categories of deductions being the above the line deductions or adjustments to income and the below the line deductions the greater of standard deductions or itemized deductions recognizing that with the above the line or adjustments to income deductions we don't have to clear a hurdle like the standard deduction hurdle before we can utilize the deductions in this category so we're on the first page of the form 1040 income section we're looking at line number 10 adjustments to income from schedule one line 26 this is because schedule one part two adjustments to income we're focused on line 19 alimony paid and 20 ira deduction all right for tax years 2019 and onwards due to the tax cuts and jobs act the tax treatment of alimony payments has changed significantly so we're back to this alimony which might sound familiar because you saw it before on the income side of things because we have this symmetry between the taxpayers that we often see remembering the general idea from the irs is that if someone is going to get a benefit of a deduction then they have to rat out who they gave the money to so the irs can go after the person that received the money which we can see most clearly in an employee employer situation where if the employer wants the deduction of wages paid to the employee they have to not only rat out the employee in that case with a w2 not just going to the employee but also to the irs but also withhold the taxes and employee pay it to the government on the employee's behalf not all systems are that stringent because with a 1099 situation you don't have to do the withholdings but you're still telling the irs the income that has been earned by someone else in order to facilitate the deduction if you have a situation where two married couples