Tax Changes and Key Amounts for the 2022 Tax Year

Americans are facing a long list of tax changes for the 2022 tax year. Smart taxpayers will start planning for them now.

picture of blocks with "2022 what's new?" written on them
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Even though tax filing season is still months away, this is actually a great time of year to start thinking about next year's return. After all, the more tax planning you do, the more money you may be able to save. And if you see something now that can reduce your 2022 tax bill, there's still plenty of time to act before the year runs out. But proper tax planning requires an awareness of what's new and changed from last year — and there are plenty of tax law changes and updates for the 2022 tax year that savvy taxpayers need to know about.

Big tax breaks were enacted for the 2021 tax year. But most of those tax law changes expired at the end of 2021. As a result, the child tax credit, child and dependent care credit, earned income credit and other popular tax breaks are different for the 2022 tax year than they were for 2021. The Inflation Reduction Act might impact your 2022 tax return, too. Other 2022 tweaks are the result of new rules or annual inflation adjustments. But no matter how, when or why the changes were made, they can hurt or help your bottom line — so you need to be ready for them. To help you out, we pulled together a list of the most important tax law changes and adjustments for 2022 (some related items are grouped together). Use this information now so you can hold on to more of your hard-earned cash next year when it's time to file your 2022 return.

Joy Taylor
Editor, The Kiplinger Tax Letter

Joy is an experienced CPA and tax attorney with an L.L.M. in Taxation from New York University School of Law. After many years working for big law and accounting firms, Joy saw the light and now puts her education, legal experience and in-depth knowledge of federal tax law to use writing for Kiplinger. She writes and edits The Kiplinger Tax Letter and contributes federal tax and retirement stories to kiplinger.com and Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. Her articles have been picked up by the Washington Post and other media outlets. Joy has also appeared as a tax expert in newspapers, on television and on radio discussing federal tax developments.