Taking a sales tax deduction

[smgospe]

I am completing the return for my 89-year-old mother-in-law who resides in assisted living.  Most of her expenses are for her assisted living rent, meals and personal care.  While she does get a few items at local stores, she has few outside expenses.  Would it be appropriate to take a sales tax deduction (determined by her income) even though she does not formally pay much sales tax?  Granted, her fees to the assisted living community go towards sales taxes for supplies that find their way to her.  Thank you.

[NCperson]

If she taking the standard deduction or itemizing?

If standard it won’t matter

[smgospe]

She would be itemizing.  She will be far below the $5000 SALT cap, but has enough medical expenses to make itemizing appropriate.  I am just trying to determine if it is appropriate for her to deduct state sales tax when she hasn't spent that much at local stores to justify the deduction (but certainly she has indirectly paid a large amount of state sales tax via assisted living expenses). 

[NCperson]

Here is the IRS advice

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/individuals/sales-tax-deduction-calculator

Note that SALT is 10,000 if single or joint ; it’s 5000 if married filing separately

[smgospe]

I am afraid that my question is still not answered.  I am aware of the SALT cap and how the sales tax deduction is calculated based on total income.  I am really asking an ethics/legal question.  If the individual is not doing a lot of shopping and spending funds directly on sales tax, is it still OK to deduct the calculated sales tax, under the assumption that she has paid sales tax indirectly via all of the expenses of her living in an assisted living community?

[NCperson]

The question was answered ... the IRS link states receipts are required to document the sales tax

Do you have receipts?

Sorry, i don’t see the ethical question - it’s pretty “cut and dry”