Medical expenses can be quite cumbersome, especially if you have unforeseen emergencies that are not completely covered by your insurance. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) makes some of these medical expenses partly tax-deductible in order to give taxpayers a break. In order to take advantage of this tax deduction, you have to know what counts and what doesn’t count as a medical expense.
Deduction value for medical expenses
The IRS allows you to deduct qualified medical expenses that are more than 7.5% of your adjusted gross income for 2017 and 2018. Starting January 2019, all taxpayers may deduct only the amount of the total unreimbursed allowable health care expenses for the year that is more than 10% of their adjusted gross income. Your adjusted gross income (AGI) is your taxable income minus any adjustments to your income like deductions, contributions to a traditional IRA, and student loan interest.
Which health care expenses are deductible?
The IRS allows taxpayers to deduct preventative care, treatment, surgeries, dental, and vision care as qualifying medical expenses. You may also deduct visits to psychologists and psychiatrists. Prescription medications and appliances like contacts, glasses false teeth, and hearing aids are also deductible. Finally, you can deduct travel expenses for medical care like mileage on our car, bus fare, and parking fees.
Which health care expenses are not deductible?
If you’re reimbursed for any medical expenses, such as by your employer, you cannot deduct them. Additionally, the IRS typically does not allow you to deduct expenses for cosmetic procedures. You cannot deduct expenses for non-prescription drugs (excluding insulin) or other purchased for general health like vitamins, toothpaste, health club dues, diet food, or non-prescription nicotine products. You also cannot deduct medical expenses paid in a different year.
New York NY Accountant
Medical expenses are hard enough to deal with, and the accounting that goes along with them are incredibly complicated too. That’s why you should let our team of New York NY accountants help you. The Department of Finance collects more than $35.8 billion in revenue for NYC alone, and our tax accountants can help you through the mess of deducting your health care expenses.
