Tax year

The tax year is the calendar year a return covers. For most households the tax year matches the calendar year: January 1 through December 31. A few households (most often businesses or estates) use a fiscal tax year that ends in a different month, but for individual filers the calendar-year version is the default.

The reason the term matters for Gluten Hero is mechanical. Receipts logged in 2026 belong to the 2026 tax year, even if the return itself is not filed until early 2027. The medical expenses on the 2026 Schedule A are the expenses paid between January 1 and December 31, 2026, regardless of when the bill was incurred or when the receipt was photographed.

That has two practical consequences inside Gluten Hero. First, the AGI floor resets every tax year; spending that did not clear the floor in 2025 does not roll into 2026. Second, the Compare tab on the Reports page puts two tax years side by side once a household has data in more than one, with the delta and percent change for items, travel, medical, and the rolled-up total.

A common edge case: a December 30 receipt belongs to the year it was paid, not the year the food was eaten. A January 2 receipt is the next year. Households that shop in bulk near year-end occasionally need to look at the payment date rather than the consumption date when sorting receipts into tax years. Gluten Hero stores the purchase date on each receipt and rolls it up by calendar year automatically.

Most reasonable filing extensions extend the deadline to file the return, not the tax year the return covers. A 2026 return filed in October 2027 on extension still covers the 2026 tax year.