Medical Tax Deduction - How to make the IRS' Cut-Off
There has been an insurance study done on what we as a nation, will be paying for medical insurance and other medical costs 200 years from now; you'd never guess what they found. In 200 years, the country will be paying every penny it makes to hospitals and doctors. It may well happen too, if the new health-care bill doesn't get something done right away. Until then, there is at least one way, you can get the government to absorb some of your medical costs, if you have the patience to find out what the rules are, and to do as they say. Here's the deal: the IRS allows you a tax deduction for medical costs, if your medical expenses have been in excess of 7.5% of your gross income adjusted. That's not a reasonable sounding figure at all; in fact, that happens to be quite an unimaginable sum. However, if you have access to expert insurance advice, it may still be possible with work.
To begin with, you need to make sure you are including the medical expenses of every last person who features on your tax return - spouse, children and any other dependents. Sometimes your mother or your father might be allowable too, even if they aren't dependents, technically. And every medical expense counts, dental and all. Let's look at a few medical expenses that people often neglect to look at as possible tax deduction material.
1.If you got laser eye surgery done, that would count as a tax allowable medical expense.
2.Spectacles, contact lenses or dentures, and hearing aids, are easily allowable too.
3.If you have a medical condition that the doctor says requires that you use an air conditioner or an air purifier or something, the cost of buying it at operating it, are allowed.
4. If you go to attend a health seminar to do with an illness you have, all expenses to do with it, are allowable.
5. And would you believe it, if you sign-up to a weight-loss program, or a quit-smoking program at your doctor's request, that could be allowed as a tax deduction too.
With that settled, you need to make sure that you don't get your IRS Schedule A tax deduction rules all mixed up with the ones that apply to your Flexible Spending Account (or FSA). The FSA is for something you can use to make up for your over-the-counter medicine expenses - aspirin and the like. The IRS doesn't like to see anything submitted as a medical tax deduction, if it isn't doctor-prescribed. What it does like to see are special-needs expenses - a wheelchair for the mobility challenged, something that provides television closed captioning, for those who can't hear, or expenses to alter your car to hold a wheelchair.
However, there are some things that you shouldn't try to offer as a medical tax deduction, because they won't let you get away with it. A weight-loss program that the doctor didn't recommend, hair transplant or hair removal treatments, and certainly not expensive imported herbal supplements. With all the correct medical tax deductions added-on, you should be good to go with that 7.5%