 So, state and local general sales tax. If you elect to deduct state and local general sales tax instead of income taxes, you must check the box on line 5A. So, if you're in a state that doesn't have the income tax, then you should still get a benefit because you're still paying taxes. It's just that now you're paying a sales tax, which is generally gonna be higher than states that have an income tax, except that in states like California and New York, we have all kinds of taxes because they just waste money like crazy. It's ridiculous. In any case, to figure your state and local general sales tax deduction, you can use either your actual expenses or the optional sales tax tables. So, if you're using the sales tax tables, it's quite easy to calculate, but if you had actual sales, some tax calculations that could be easier, obviously it's difficult to know what your actual sales tax is because everything you purchased is gonna have a sales tax on it. But, if you have a large ticket item, you bought a yacht or something, then you're gonna have a large sales tax that's gonna be higher than the average tables that are gonna be used to calculate the sales tax. So, the actual expenses, generally, you can deduct the actual state and local general sales tax, including compensating use taxes you paid in 2022 if the tax rate was the same as the general sales tax rate. So, food, clothing, and medical supplies. Sales taxes on food, clothing, and medical supplies are deductible as a general sales tax, even if the tax rate was less than the general sales tax rate. Motor vehicles, sales tax on motor vehicles are deductible as a general sales tax, even if the tax was different than the general sales tax rate. However, if you paid sales tax on a motor vehicle at a rate higher than the general sales tax, you can deduct only the amount of the tax that you would have paid at the general sales tax rate on that vehicle. So, if you paid some, you know, it's the general sales tax rate. So, include any state and local general sales taxes paid for at least motor vehicles. So, you can see how, you know, businesses, if there's a deduction related to sales taxes, then you can, there's an incentive to try to manipulate the cost to be categorized as something that could be deductible like sales taxes. And you can see situations where they might say, well, that was applied to a higher sales tax so that you didn't get a deduction, but no, you have to use the general sales tax. So, motor vehicles include cars, motorcycles, motor homes, recreational vehicles, sports utility vehicles, trucks, vans, and off-road vehicles. Caution, you must keep your actual receipts showing general sales taxes paid to use this method. Obviously, that gets quite tedious because, again, you pay sales tax on everything you purchase, which is why if you're not buying big ticket items, sometimes the tables are just easier to use often times. Trade or business items. Don't include sales tax paid on items used in your trade or business. Instead, go to the instructions for the form you are using to report business income and expenses to see if you can deduct these taxes. So, the taxes on the trade or business, the schedule C is where you go for those items. So, for example, if you bought a computer for personal use, then you might be able to deduct the sales taxes on the schedule A related to it as sales taxes, right? But if you bought the computer for business uses, then on the schedule C, the whole computer itself might be a deductible, including the sales tax, you would think, you might have to put it on the books and depreciate it, but you'd think you'd get the deductible up capacity of the computer because including the sales tax, because you're using the whole thing and you bought it in order to generate revenue for the business. We'll talk about schedule C businesses later. And you can't double dip. You can't say I'm gonna deduct the whole computer and the sales tax on the schedule C and deduct the part of the sales tax on the schedule A. That would be taking two deductions for the same thing. Refund of general sales taxes. If you receive a refund of state or local general sales taxes in 2022 for amounts paid in 2022, reduce your actual 2022 state and local sales taxes by this amount. So the sales taxes are a little bit different than the income taxes or they're kind of the same thing, right? Basically, if in 2022 you paid the sales tax and then you got refunded the sales tax, but we're talking that you got refunded the sales tax in 2022, then you can take care of that in 2022 and reduce your sales tax deduction for the amount that was refunded. If you receive a refund of the state or local general sales tax in 2022 for prior year purchase, don't reduce your 2022 state and local general sales taxes by this amount. However, if you deducted your actual state and local general sales taxes in the earlier year and the deduction reduced your tax, you may have to include the refund in income on schedule one, form 1040 line 8Z, see recoveries in publication 525 for details. So this is the similar rule as with the state income tax. So meaning if you got a refund of the sales tax for whatever reason that's more unusual than with an income tax type of system, but if you got a refund for it and it was related to the prior year, then you have to do the same kind of thing that we talked about with this state income tax refund. You gotta say, well, did I get a benefit from it last year by getting a deduction on the schedule A related to a tax software is quite helpful to calculate that. And then if you did, then you'd have to include the amount as income in the year that you got the refund on. But again, that's more unusual of a system that you'd see, although maybe it's more common than I would know, because I'm in a state with sales tax, so I don't see how common that is possibly.