Can you really claim tax deductions if you do not have a receipt? How?

It is possible to take deductions without a receipt as long as you can prove the expense with reasonable certainty. For example, if you drive from Cleveland to Chicago for a four day business trip and you have hotel receipts in Chicago, you can deduct the travel expenses based on reasonable estimates of the cost of gas, tolls, meals, etc. If your business is home remodeling and you remodeled a bathroom, you can deduct the reasonable costs of the tile, new plumbing fixtures, paint, that glue stuff they use to hold done the tiles (hey, I'm a lawyer not a home repair expert). It is VASTLY preferable to keep your receipts (or at least pay with a card). The first reason, is that the IRS doesn't challenge receipts in normal circumstances. The second reason is that you usually don't remember every expense, so you're losing some valid deductions. the third reason is that you'll spend a lot of time attempting to remember all your jobs and expenses last year compared to going through the receipts.

The Internal Revenue Code requires taxpayers to keep accurate tax records which should be used to prepare the tax returns every year. However, you are not required to produce those records to the IRS unless you are audited. If you are audited, IRS will not allow any deductions unless you have documents or other evidence to support those deductions.