BACKGROUND:
After filing my 2018 federal and state returns, I discovered a provision in my state tax code whereby a portion of my pension from a state educational institution was non-taxable. That led me, in 2019, to file amended STATE returns for tax-year 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018. [Because there was no change in my federal tax due and no change in the federal refund due because the amending changes only affected the STATE tax due, I filed no amended FEDERAL returns for these five years.] As a consequence, instead of owing state taxes as indicated in the original returns for those tax years, after filing the amended state returns in 2019, I ended up with state refunds for each tax year.
2019 TT QUESTION:
I have reached the section for state refunds and am at the page with the title “Did you have any of these types of income,” below which is listed as an example “--state and local tax refunds received in 2019.”
I clicked on the informational link “When would my state or local tax refund count as income” and I read this: “Your state or local tax refund received in 2019 could count as income if you itemized your deductions in 2018. If you did this, your 2018 tax return would have a Schedule A. If your return doesn't have a Schedule A, then your state or local tax refund won't count as income.”
I did not itemize in both the 2018 federal and state returns and there is no Schedule A. Does the information in the link mean that all five state refunds that I received in 2019 are not taxable? Or does the information in the link apply only to the state refund that I received in 2019 for my tax year 2018 state return?
If the information in the link applies only to my tax-year 2018 state refund, since I itemized in tax-year 2016 and I did not in the other years, I am wondering how I indicate that 2016 was a tax year in which I itemized, while at the same time indicating that 2014, 2015, and 2017 were tax years in which I did NOT itemize, and also at the same time answering the question about the 2018 tax-year refund, for which I also did not itemize.
Or do I answer the first question which is about tax-year 2018, indicating that I did not itemize that year, and then click on the button “Add another State or Local Tax Refund” only one time to enter the refund for the 2016 tax year, the only year in which I itemized, in other words, not entering anything about the non-itemizing years 2014, 2015, and 2017??
