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mfabbey07
New Member

Last year I got some money back from my car registration, but not this year.

I live in WA.
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1 Best answer

Accepted Solutions
GeoffreyG
New Member

Last year I got some money back from my car registration, but not this year.

In the State of Washington, the only portion of your vehicle registration that is tax deductible (on Form 1040 Schedule A) is the amount shown on your statement for the RTA (Regional Transit Authority) tax.  Only residents of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, and who live within the Sound Transit District, will have any RTA tax.  If you do not pay RTA taxes, then you do not have a tax deductible portion of vehicle registration fees for Washington vehicles.

For more information on the RTA, you may visit the following government webpage:

http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/rta.html

In TurboTax, you would want to enter the full amount of your RTA tax (if applicable to you) that is shown on your Washington vehicle registration statement.  You won't reduce the RTA amount, nor will you enter any amounts from your Washington vehicle registration statement other than the RTA tax.  This is the dollar amount that you should use for the TurboTax data field that asks for your "deductible portion" of the Washington vehicle registration fees.

Finally, it is also important to keep in mind that you (or anyone claiming this deduction) may or may not actually see any net tax benefit from including this item on your tax return.  The reason for this is that you must have enough itemized deductions (in total) to exceed the standard deduction available to all taxpayers.  Since more than 2 in 3 taxpayers do not, most people end up taking the (more valuable) standard deduction, rather than itemizing deductions.  If you input all your data carefully, however, the TurboTax software will make that determination for you.

If you noticed a federal tax benefit from your RTA vehicle tax last year (and assuming that you were completing your tax return correctly), then that means you must have been able to itemize deductions (overall) last year.  As a corollary to that, if you did not notice a similar federal tax benefit upon inputting your RTA vehicle tax, then that would indicate that you are not able to itemize deductions this year (which is another way of saying that the standard deduction is more valuable to you).

Thank you for asking this question.

View solution in original post

1 Reply
GeoffreyG
New Member

Last year I got some money back from my car registration, but not this year.

In the State of Washington, the only portion of your vehicle registration that is tax deductible (on Form 1040 Schedule A) is the amount shown on your statement for the RTA (Regional Transit Authority) tax.  Only residents of King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties, and who live within the Sound Transit District, will have any RTA tax.  If you do not pay RTA taxes, then you do not have a tax deductible portion of vehicle registration fees for Washington vehicles.

For more information on the RTA, you may visit the following government webpage:

http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/rta.html

In TurboTax, you would want to enter the full amount of your RTA tax (if applicable to you) that is shown on your Washington vehicle registration statement.  You won't reduce the RTA amount, nor will you enter any amounts from your Washington vehicle registration statement other than the RTA tax.  This is the dollar amount that you should use for the TurboTax data field that asks for your "deductible portion" of the Washington vehicle registration fees.

Finally, it is also important to keep in mind that you (or anyone claiming this deduction) may or may not actually see any net tax benefit from including this item on your tax return.  The reason for this is that you must have enough itemized deductions (in total) to exceed the standard deduction available to all taxpayers.  Since more than 2 in 3 taxpayers do not, most people end up taking the (more valuable) standard deduction, rather than itemizing deductions.  If you input all your data carefully, however, the TurboTax software will make that determination for you.

If you noticed a federal tax benefit from your RTA vehicle tax last year (and assuming that you were completing your tax return correctly), then that means you must have been able to itemize deductions (overall) last year.  As a corollary to that, if you did not notice a similar federal tax benefit upon inputting your RTA vehicle tax, then that would indicate that you are not able to itemize deductions this year (which is another way of saying that the standard deduction is more valuable to you).

Thank you for asking this question.
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