On the screens where you enter Car Registration Fees/Personal Property taxes, it specifically states that Virginia car Registration fees are not deductible, but provides no place to enter the personal property taxes, which are deductible. The following screen asks about Boats, etc..., but not cars. You might be able to enter it as a registration fee, but that does not seem correct. At the very least it is confusing. This is for the Desktop tax software, not the web page.
Even though the information on the screen excludes cars, I think that is the best place to enter it.
Please see my updated answer. Enter the expense as Personal Property Tax (in spite of the screen title)--I have reported this issue.
It can not be entered in easy step. You can enter it in forms view, but it shows up under registration fees rather than personal property tax. A tax preparer said on the radio that failure to claim this deduction is one of the biggest mistakes made by Virginia filers, largely because TurboTax indicates they can't claim it.
This issue is still present in 2018 version of TurboTax. If you go to Personal Property, it doesn't specifically let users know that the Virginia Vehicle Personal Property Tax is deductible and that this is where you should enter it. There also isn't a crosswalk from the Vehicle Registration fee area telling VA residents to go to the Personal Property section to enter the "Personal Property Tax" portion of their vehicle tax bill. Poor guidance and instructions caused me to loose almost $200 tax savings per year 2005-2013. I had to re-file for 2014-2016 when I learned this. Frankly I think you owe me about $1900 for failing on your "Promise" especially since the guidance is still messed up.
Working on 2018 TurboTax and very annoying they won't fix this for VA residents!!!
Plus... contradicting guidance from answers from two TurboTax agents... here vs. a similar question raised 2 years ago. One agent says to enter personal property taxes (for cars/vehicles) in the car registration fees and the other says put it in the personal property tax section. Plus guidance in Turbotax itself can be misleading and has obvious gaps for VA residents in this section.
I'm trying to figure out whether the $38 registration portion of my VA property tax bill should be included (x 4 cars) and no joy. I'll just exclude to be safe.
@mykaneilson Instead of posting to a 3 year old thread, please start your own new thread with a new question.
@xmasbaby I disagree. TurboTax needs to know and needs to fix this "still". The history of our complaining is relevant. @mykaneilson You can't claim the $38 local registration fee--only the "Net Tax Amount" which is based on the value of the car.
I am trying to point out to you that posting to a three year old thread is an ineffective way to get help.
I'm sorry for the confusion. I am reporting this issue to our developers.
In Virginia:
Personal Property Taxes paid are entered as a deduction in the Federal interview as an itemized deduction. To enter these expenses in TurboTax, please follow these steps:
If you take the standard deduction instead of itemizing you will not receive a benefit from the entry.
Thanks for the explanation, very helpful. Still would like to see this resolved inside of TurboTax, because without this explanation, it is not readily apparent that vehicle property taxes are deductible in Virginia.
The problem still isn't fixed. I realized today that I have missed out on two year's worth of getting money back from personal property tax I've paid on my car.
Same here. I've missed out on this for years now. Fix it Turbo Tax!
I think the problem may stem from the fact that the personal property taxes in Virginia are administered regulated by the governing locality (within the bounds of VA state law), so the same car in Alexandria, Arlington, or Prince William all have somewhat different tax bills and different local governments they pay this to. This complication may have caused TurboTax to say "let's deal with it next year" -- on an annual basis...
@TurboTaxIrene Thanks for providing the answer to this 2 years ago. Any progress on getting TurboTax development team to fix this issue?
@TurboTaxIrene Thanks for providing the answer to this 2 years ago. Any progress on getting TurboTax development team to fix this issue?
Following up on the same question, since this hasn't been fixed to reflect property taxes (as opposed to registrations) on vehicles being deductible in Virginia, as of 03/04/2018. At this point, even if you enter the local personal property tax paid for a vehicle under the other personal property taxes section (per the recommended manual approach to correct for this issue above), it still doesn't cause any change in the Federal tax due/refund owed, even though it is clearly a deductible item. Interestingly, making a personal property tax entry on the form under the other personal property taxes section does cause a change in the overall Virginia state tax due/refund owed (this was noted when removing and re-adding it to make sure it was entered correctly), so clearly the value is being saved/recognized on entry, it just isn't causing the correct, or any, deduction to be taken in calculating the Federal tax. For reference, this is happening on a return being prepared in an installed version of Premier and with plenty of other itemized deductions already entered (all of which seemed to work correctly), so the standard deduction is not being used. How can we get local personal property taxes paid on vehicles in Virginia, which are based on vehicle value, to be accepted correctly as a deduction for our Federal return?
Where's my money for my vehicle personal property taxes over the past 4 years I've used this software? Huge oversight--one for which Intuit should be concerned about a lawsuit.
It looks to me like a design flaw that has been enhanced by a bug. No matter what number I add to either the Car Registration Fees line or the Personal Property Taxes line, it ONLY deducts from my State tax. I even changed my state to South Carolina, and the software did the same. Testing against TT2016, this is NOT what happened... both fed and state figures moved. And yes, I'm well under the phase-out limits for deductibility. Not sure how to deal with this now... manually prep a Schedule A? Ideas?