If you Itemized on your 2017 federal return you should have a schedule A. You need to look at schedule A.
It wants to know about line 5 on a schedule A to see if your state refund is taxable.
A State Tax Refund is taxable if you itemized deductions on that prior year's federal return and took a deduction for state income taxes instead of the sale tax. You got a deduction benefit for it so now you have to include it as income. If you took the standard deduction or filed a 1040EZ or 1040A it is not taxable and you don't need to report it.
As VolvoGirl said, if you didn't itemize, and used the Standard Deductions in 2017, the refund does not need to be reported. Thank you for using TurboTax.
I thank all of you, it was my error. I did not do my income tax in 2017 (medical reasons) AARP completed it. They selected Standard deductions. I did not recall it? I guess I will blame it on old age.
If you itemized on your 2017 Federal tax return, get the 2017 Schedule A that was included with (attached to) your 2017 tax return and look at line 5. Either Box 5a or Box 5b will be checked.
