Does every day item sales tax count as a deduction

[Bsch4477 · Accepted solution]

For practical purposes, no.  If you itemize and deduct sales tax instead of state income taxes most tax payers use tax sales tax table but you could keep track of every sales tax receipt and use that total if you wanted. 

[Carl]

You can elect to itemized your sales tax deduction which requires you to have receipts for "EVRYTHING" you paid sales tax on. Or you can elect to take the "average" deduction based on your AGI. Either way, it's an itemized deduction on SCH A. Itemized deductions are limited too.

First, itemizing has absolutely no impact what-so-ever on your tax liability until the total of all of your itemized deductions (not just sales tax) exceeds your standard deduction. Then you have limits on those itemized deductions too.

 - Your state and local taxes (SALT) are limited to a maximum of $10,000 on the SCH A ($5000 if married filing separate)

 - Your mortgage interest deduction is limited to the interest paid on a maximum of $750,000 of outstanding secured debt. (does not include rental property reported on SCH E)

 - Your itemized medical expenses have to exceed 7.5% of your AGI before they can be included as an itemized deduction.

Nowadays, less than 10% of tax filers will find itemizing to be more beneficial than their standard deduction.