Have you recently decided to change a few things in your life only to discover it’s a really expensive decision to make right now? In these times weight loss and stop smoking programs are tough to pay for. The thing you probably didn’t know about is a little known tax credit that is available to those of us who decide to lose weight or stop smoking.

You probably already know that almost none of the insurance providers out there will cover the cost that comes with these type of programs. They should because it would save money they will be out later down the road covering the long term health effects, but yet they won’t.

The IRS recognized this problem and passed laws in 2003 to allow people to claim a tax credit on the money they have paid out of pocket for weight loss and smoking cessation programs.

Keep in mind this is a tax credit and not a tax deduction. This means that you will get 100% credit on the amount spent for the program you participated in.

Your medical expenses related to a smoking cessation program can also be included. Everything except aids that didn’t require a prescription, like nicotine gum and patches, can be included on your return.

For weight loss, you can claim the medical expenses incurred for disease treatment that has been diagnosed by your doctor as related to your weight. Things like obesity, diabetes and heart disease are just a few that fall under this category. You can also include membership fees for weight reduction programs and meetings, but you may not include the membership fees for things like gyms and health clubs. These can be counted as separate fees related to your weight loss activities, but never as medical expenses.

What you need to do to claim these credits is fill out a form titled Health Coverage Tax Credit Form 8885. You then need fill out line 67 of your Form 1040, check box C and attach both forms together. You can not use a 1040A or 1040EZ to file for this credit on your return so be sure you are filing out the right paperwork before you submit anything.

Additionally, you must also attach the invoices and payments proofs you included on the Form 8885 as things you did not get advanced payment for. For e-filed returns you can attach these documents to Form 8543. Proof of payment can be anything from a pay stub, check from your bank account or a bank statement showing premiums that are automatically deducted from your account.

At Oduox you will learn all sorts of tax information that will truly help you get your finances in order.

The day before the Presidents day is the worst day and the day after the Easter is the worst day after. However, you should keep in mind that a lot of other factors also come into play and you have a lot of room for error. The next best holiday bets are the Labor Day and the Memorial Day because they fall before the first day of trading in September and June respectively.

You must have heard about the Santa Claus Rally? Most of the folks usually feel fairly good about themselves around this time of the year. The best time of the year to own stocks is the Santa Claus rally which for all practical purposes is the 17 day stretch from December 21 to January 7. This is the best time of the year.

FED tends to lower interest rates during holidays in order to go into the New Year with less of a worry if the economy is slowing down. There is a low trading volume which tends to exaggerate the trend if the economy is not doing well and is slowing down. However, when you are dealing with seasonality, you should keep these facts in your mind:

1) More and more people have real time access to information and larger amounts of capital than at any time in the past. The market is not longer static. The seasonal effect may get interrupted by other events.

2) At the end of the year, institutional investors want to make their results look as good as possible to their shareholders and tend to buy the stocks and so on. Institutional investors like mutual funds, hedge funds and insurance companies have become important players in the markets. So in case of an event free environment, seasonal tendencies may hold up fairly well.

3) The days of long term investing or what you call buy and hold are dead! Frequent market crashes have taught the investing public that investing for the long term is fairly risky. So there is more short term trading going on. These are the times for day traders and swing traders. With fewer people willing to hold stocks for longer periods, it is very difficult to predict seasonality.

4) The recent market crash was the result of CMO and Default Swaps bringing down the banks and Insurance companies in ways that had not been anticipated or foreseen by the analysts. Many had assumed that derivate securities are safe. Infact they have highly unpredictable tendencies. Derivates and outside the market trading activities can result in highly unpredictable patterns.

Then there is a change in demographics also taking place. With the aging of the population, the overall trend will be towards more income producing investments. So with everyone talking about the seasonal tendencies in the market, it reliability becomes less diminished.

Mr. Ahmad Hassam is a Harvard University Graduate. Try This 1500 Pips A Day Forex Signal Service! Know These Candlestick Patterns! Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service