Considering the matter of whether or not I benefited from deducting the refunded amount of my state income tax, and looking at the worksheet, it still took a while to realize why my state income tax refund is not taxable this year. It is because the new increased federal standard deduction was greater than my itemized deductions, so I did not actually receive a federal tax benefit from ANY of my itemized deductions, even though looking at Schedule A makes it appear that I benefited from deducting that amount. (I itemized because of the benefit to my state income tax, which outweighed the benefit of taking the federal standard deduction.)
