As the holidays usher in the end of the year, it’s easy to overlook the moves you could make to put yourself in a better position come tax time. Come April, you’ll either thank or curse your November and December 2011 self for making either savvy or stupid financial decisions.

The Wall Street Journal’s Smart Money offers some recommendations. Here are a pair of tips from the story:

* Prepay college tuition. If you’re in school, you may be able to squeeze some more money out of certain tax credits by paying tuition due in January in December.

* Buy a car. If you plan on itemizing and spent a lot of money on sales tax this year, you can add the sales tax spent on a car or boat on top of the figure you get from the IRS table you use to calculate your sales tax deduction. If you were going to buy a new vehicle soon anyway, you may as well get the tax benefit sooner rather than later.

Check out the source link for the rest of the advice.

Year-End Tax Moves [Smart Money]

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