You need to either use the IRS' sales tax tables or add up each and every invoice. It's extremely rare to save enough invoices to be able to support a higher deduction.See
the Schedule A instructions from the IRS here:
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040sca.pdf
They
include the following regarding sales taxes (I added the underlining):
"Caution. You must keep your actual receipts showing general sales
taxes paid to use this method."
I
suspect the reason the IRS doesn't permit just credit card receipts is they
don't show what amount of sales taxes were paid. For example, credit card
receipts from a grocery or drug store could contain both taxable and
non-taxable items. Similarly, credit card receipts at a gas station could
include taxable snack items or non-taxable gasoline. (In most states, taxes on
gasoline are excise taxes and are not deductible.)
To show the difficulty, comments on some of your items include:
- Gas (0.15 per gallon in texas) - not deductible as it is an excise tax, not a sales tax.
- Airline tickets - these are federal excise taxes and not deductible.
- hotel rooms - most lodging taxes, because they are higher than the general sales tax rate, are not deductible.
- gas bill (some type of tax there) - utility excise taxes and fees are not deductible.
- water bill (some type of tax there) - utility excise taxes and fees are not deductible.
- electricity bill (some type of tax there) - utility excise taxes and fees are not deductible.
- Cell phone bill (some type of taxes there) - federal and state excise tax fees are not deductible.
- Passport Fees? - processing fees are not deductible.
- Pharmacy? - it could include taxable and non-taxable items.
- Doctors visits? - I've never seen one that charged a sales tax.
