The short answer to your question is that, in Nevada, you can deduct the "Governmental Services Tax" and the "Supplemental Governmental Services Tax" portion of your vehicle registration fees. The long answer to your question is discussed below.
In general, there is no actual tax deduction for
vehicle registration fees on a personal tax return. However, if you
live
in a state that imposes an excise tax amount, based on the value of the
vehicle and not some other factor, and that excise tax is paid as part
of the
registration process, then the excise tax portion can be deducted, but not the
whole
amount of the cost of registration.
The legal reasoning is as
follows. The IRS only allows that portion of a state registration fee
that is based on the value of the vehicle to be included toward your
other itemized deductions. Any flat fee portion doesn't count. This
is why there are some 20+ states whose residents can potentially benefit from
the deduction; but the remainder cannot: their states do not charge
vehicle registration fees by value, and instead charge flat fees only.
There is a list of these
qualifying states built-into the TurboTax software. A graphical image of
this chart of states is also shown in one of the screen-capture images at the
bottom of this answer (simply click to enlarge). The other image shows a sample Nevada registration receipt and where to look on it for the tax-deductible amounts.
Since Nevada is on the list of eligible states,
then you can enter the vehicle excise tax amount in TurboTax. To do so,
you will want to have your tax return open and locate the Search / Find
box on your screen. Next, type in the exact search string "vehicle
registration fees" and then click on the Jump To link that
should appear beneath. This will take you to the appropriate data entry
place in the program.
You may additionally find the following Nevada webpage helpful, where the MSRP value-based calculations for the vehicle excise taxes collected by the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles are discussed:
http://www.dmvnv.com/regfees.htm
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 these items 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.
Thank you for asking this question.
