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What Medical Expenses are Tax Deductible?
No one enjoys paying medical bills, even with good insurance and a small deductible. A plus point of bulky bills is the opportunity to claim your medical expenses deduction as a deduction on your tax return, as long as your bills exceed 7.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income in the tax year, and you can itemize your deductions.
If your medical treatments cost you more than 7.5% of your income, follow the following five rules to maximize your tax refund.
The term “Doctor” is not just a doctor
The IRS allows tax deductions for dental and vision care expenses in addition to medical expenses. This means that you can deduct your eye exams, contact lenses, conventional lenses, visits to the dentist, dentures and root canal treatments.
What else qualifies as medical deductions? Preventive treatments and surgeries, psychiatric and psychological treatments, and prescription of medications and medical devices (such as hearing aids and home medical equipment) are included in the medical expense deduction.
You can even deduct the cost of your monthly insurance payments if they are not made before paying taxes through an employer-provided plan, as well as travel expenses for doctor visits. The medical expense deduction includes the medical expenses you pay for yourself, your spouse, and your dependents.
Non-Deductible Expenses
Before filing your return, you should know what expenses are not tax-deductible. Like everything related to taxes, you cannot receive tax benefits twice.
You cannot claim deductions for expenses that have already been reimbursed to you, either through your insurance or your employer. If you’re using a prepaid medical plan or some other medical reimbursement plan to help you with expenses, great. However, you cannot claim those expenses as deductions if they have already been reimbursed.
It is also important to know that you cannot claim cosmetic surgeries as a medical deduction unless said surgery is part of an emergency procedure or some other serious health problem. Generally, the IRS does not allow you to claim cosmetic surgeries as medical deductions.
Other non-deductible items are daily or over-the-counter health items, such as over-the-counter toothpaste, soap, vitamins, or pain relievers.
You can Claim Medical Expenses if You Detail Your Tax Deductions
As the title indicates, to receive the benefits of the IRS medical deductions, you have to qualify to itemize your deductions, so that your itemized deductible expenses, such as mortgage interest, state income taxes, property taxes, and medical expenses Deductibles, must exceed the standard deduction for the tax year 2019 ($ 12,200 for singles, $ 18,350 for heads of household and $ 24,400 for married filing jointly). You cannot take the standard deduction and claim the medical expense deduction at the same time.
If you are a self-employed person, you can deduct your health insurance premiums even if you don’t itemize your deductions.
Pay Your Bills
Do you know what medical bills you want to deduct from your income?
When did you pay them? As far as Uncle Sam is concerned, you can only deduct medical expenses if they were paid within the tax year in which you are filing the return. You cannot claim expenses from the previous year or future expenses. If you used a credit card to pay medical bills in the tax year, that would count as payment within the year and could be deducted.
Track The Miles
Round trip trips to doctor appointments count. For 2019, the medically motivated mileage rate is 20 cents per mile (17 cents per mile by 2020). These include trips to find medications, appointments with the dentist, follow-up visits, and emergency visits, among others. Don’t miss out on this valuable deduction.
If you have incurred medical expenses during this tax year, it might be worth detailing everything simply to see what type of reimbursement might be available.
Sebastian was born and raised in the busy city of Abbottabad. As a journalist, Saad Mushtaq has contributed to many online publications including the PAK Today and the Huffing Post. In regards to academics, Saad Mushtaq earned a degree in business from the Abbottabad UST, Havelian. Saad Mushtaq follows the money and covers all aspects of emerging tech here at The Hear Up.Thanks