Are These Medical Expenses Deductible For my Family This Year?
A lot of my clients and people in general are not aware of the various aspects to medical expenses that can be deducted from your income if you itemize on your 1040 tax return. I will now go over them and explain each one.
That being said, it is important to understand the calculation that goes into utilizing this aspect on your Schedule A (Itemized Deductions).
Let’s say between your partner and yourself, you have a household AGI (Adjusted Gross Income) of 100k. You must have medical expenses beyond 7.5% of your 100k AGI before you even start counting them on the total amount of itemized deductions you have. In this case, that would be $7,500. That can be a high barrier to cross. However, with the examples listed below it may not seem as far away as one may initially think. After you cross this, you must then have a higher amount of itemized deductions than the standard deduction which for a joint filing married couple in 2024 was $29,000.
Examples:
Medical Insurance Premiums
Amounts you and/or your spouse had paid towards the cost of medical insurance, dental, and insurance related to children.
Miles Deduction
$0.21 per mile in 2024, similar to a miles standard deduction for vehicles used for business purposes.
Prescriptions, medicines, medical aids, and drugs
Many taxpayers may have expensive medications vital to their health, one that comes up frequently is the cost of insulin. This can be included as well as anything that helps you with your diagnosed conditions. Glasses, hearing aids, and other applications can also be considered in a similar aspect.
Programs related to diagnosed conditions
This can include smoking cessation, weight-loss, alcohol-use, and many other disorders.
While this may not sound immediately applicable to you, consider those who live in assisted living facilities, or maybe someone had a motorcycle accident that had a lot of out-of-pocket expenses, or someone with a family who has a lot of prescriptions/utilizes medical staff frequently for therapy in regards to a diagnosed mental health condition. Hopefully this paints a better picture of what you can do to be able to help lower your tax liability this upcoming season.
By Jacob Ashurov, EA