I am the 53%

[rainingbitcoins]

Nope, none of those things, and no kids. I went to a tech school cheap enough to pay for tuition with money I'd saved up. I rent. No retirement investments. I've used TurboTax and go with the standard deduction because it always seems to be way more than the itemized stuff. Obviously, I don't know a lot about taxes, but I'm not seeing a way to avoid paying them here, and according to everyone in the media, nobody with my income ever pays any federal taxes, so color me confused as I've paid them all my working life. I mean, it's not exactly a huge proportion of my income, but I do pay.

[Rassah]

You'll always have to pay state and SSI taxes (state depending on where you live), but you can at least lower your tax burden a bit. Open an IRA somewhere. Usually you get back in taxes about half of what you put into an IRA (depends on your tax bracket, of course). You are also allowed to put money into last year's IRA up to April 14th of the following year. So if you do your taxes with Turbo Tax, and it says you owe $250, consider dumping $500 into your IRA, and your tax bill will be about $0. Sure it's twice what you'd have to pay for taxes, but it's your money you now get to keep. Also, small business rules allow you to claim a business loss three years in a row. This is a very grey legal area, but you could set up a personal business, say running your own web site service or whatever, do a bit of advertising, and then write off the cost of the server, electricity, internet, and portion of the house dedicated to this server. Since there's little chance this will make you money, you can write off a portion of the internet and apartment you pay for, anyway. Or be creative and come up with your own doomed business ideas that use things you have to pay for, anyway. Just keep in mind that you can claim losses only three years in a row. Fourth year you have to claim gains or nothing business related at all, but then it resets and you get three more years. BUT, as I said, this is a very grey area, so be carefully. As long as it's a legitimate business, it's fine regardless of how much it fails, but it's easy to get caught up and start deducting stuff you shouldn't.

P.S. Don't take tax advice from me! Or at least don't hold me responsible if you do. These are just ideas that are out there. Please do your own research before doing the business thing (IRA thing is 100% legit though)