Guess I've been paying taxes longer than most here. Sales tax used to be deductable but that was one of the things that went away with Regan's lowering of the tax rates. You could keep track of how much you paid or they gave you a table based on income that allowed a standard deduction as a function of income.
How did that (the standard deduction) work out if you saved a lot of money? Was it a pretty good deal? I'm too young to remember.