We have a new tax law for 2018. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) was signed into law Dec. 22, 2017. Most of the changes took effect in 2018, but there were a few that were retroactive to 2017.

The personal exemption de­duction was eliminated for 2018. In 2017, this amounted to $4,050 per dependent. To help compensate for eliminating the personal deduction, the standard deduction was raised to $24,000 for those filing married filing jointly (MFJ). You will now have to exceed $24,000 in order to itemize deductions on...