Itemized deductions are things like home mortgage interest, real estate
property taxes, state income or sales taxes, charitable contributions,
etc.
For each filing status there is a standard deduction that you
can take without having to prove anything, if you have itemized
deductions that add up to be more than the standard deduction for your
filing status, then you can get a greater tax benefit by using the
itemized deductions, BUT for every penny of itemized deductions, you
must have a written record which proves the expense that you could show
to the IRS in the event of an audit.
