With the end of they year a few months away, many people are now thinking of taxes to be paid coming up in the future. Are there things you can itemize for your taxes? Actually yes, there is! A few words of wisdom…. DO NOT wait til December 31st to make the request. The billing offices for doctors are going to be quite busy with not only month end stuff, they also have year end stuff as well. Calling and asking for the papers to itemize for taxes on December 31st will get you hung up on or a grumpy medical biller on the other end of the phone. So call a few days ahead or a few days after the new year to get on the list so the doctor office can print those out for you. It will usually take a week to process your request. Most offices require a request in writing for record keeping, so call and ask what policy is for that particular office. Most offices wait til after the 1st of the new year to send the thing you requested. Why? Because they are still putting in payments and other paperwork into the system so they can run end of year reports. They want every payment accounted for through the end of the year before they send out the paperwork for tax stuff. It helps their records, and yours, to have accurate and up to date information for year-end reports and information.
So here’s a list of what you can and can’t itemize: You may be able to deduct expenses you paid that year for medical and dental care for yourself, your spouse, and your dependents.
You may deduct only the amount of your total medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. Medical care expenses include payments for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or payments for treatments affecting any structure or function of the body. Deductible medical expenses may include but aren’t limited to the following:
1. Payments of fees to doctors, dentists, surgeons, chiropractors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and nontraditional medical practitioners
2. Payments for in-patient hospital care or residential nursing home care, if the availability of medical care is the principal reason for being in the nursing home, including the cost of meals and lodging charged by the hospital or nursing home. If the availability of medical care isn’t the principal reason for residence in the nursing home, the deduction is limited to that part of the cost that’s for medical care.
3. Payments to participate in a weight-loss program for a specific disease or diseases diagnosed by a physician, including obesity, but not ordinarily payments for diet food items or the payment of health club dues
4. Payments for insulin and payments for drugs that require a prescription
5. Payments for false teeth, reading or prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses, hearing aids, crutches, wheelchairs, and for a guide dog or other service animal to assist a visually impaired or hearing disabled person, or a person with other physical disabilities
6. Payments for transportation primarily for and essential to medical care that qualify as medical expenses, such as payments of the actual fare for a taxi, bus, train, ambulance, or for transportation by personal car, the amount of your actual out-of-pocket expenses such as for gas and oil, or the amount of the standard mileage rate for medical expenses, plus the cost of tolls and parking
7. Payments for insurance premiums you paid for policies that cover medical care or for a qualified long-term care insurance policy covering qualified long-term care services. However, if you’re an employee, don’t include in medical expenses the portion of your premiums treated as paid by your employer under its sponsored group accident, health policy, or qualified long-term care insurance policy.
You may not deduct funeral or burial expenses (people have actually tried this, it did not end well).
You can only include the medical expenses you paid during the year (you would be amazed how many people have tried to put more than one year on taxes. Don’t do it, it’ll come back to bite you in the butt.) You can only use the expenses once on the return. And they are serious about this one. I know of a patient that tried to do this twice on two different tax forms. It did not end well, use their tale as a caution and only use expenses once on the tax year you are currently doing.
So with a little planning ahead, you can have the information for taxes in your hands by the time you need to start doing your taxes after the beginning of the year.
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