Deductions & credits

The answer depends on which state you live in.

If you live in a state without an income tax (Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming), then you are permitted to deduct the sales tax you paid for the year instead of state income taxes (since there aren't anyway).

The way it works is you go through the interview for sales tax in your Deductions & Credits (it's down under taxes).

In the interview, indicate the sales tax rate (if it's not already there) for the city you lived in in 2016; the program will estimate the amount of sales tax that you can deduct, based on your income. Note that you can also add in the sales tax for certain big-ticket purchases like a car or boat or home or a travel trailer. You can also save all your sales receipts for the year and add up the actual amount of sales tax paid...but nobody does that for obvious reasons.

If you can itemize, then your travel trailer sales tax will benefit you.

But If you live in a state that has an income tax, then normally there is no reason to enter the sales tax from such a purchase. This is because your income tax deduction is probably larger than your sales tax deduction. But if by some chance, your sales tax deduction as computed and with your travel trailer sales tax is now greater than your income tax paid, then you get to choose the number that is larger. Just choose which interview you do (sales tax or income tax), because you can't deduct both.



View solution in original post