Perry Webb, President of local accounting firm, Webtax, and an enrolled agent licensed to practice before the Internal Revenue Service and a Registered Tax Return Preparer, offers answers to the most frequently asked questions for the tax season.

Q: Can I deduct any medical or dental expenses?

A: If, for a taxable year, you itemize your deductions, 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 by which your total medical care expenses for the year exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income. You figure the amount you are allowed to deduct on Form 1040, Schedule A.

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 are not limited to:

• Payments of fees to doctors, dentists, surgeons, chiropractors, psychiatrists, psychologists, and nontraditional medical practitioners
• Payments for in-patient hospital care or nursing home services, including the cost of meals and lodging charged by the hospital or nursing home
• Payments for acupuncture treatments or inpatient treatment at a center for alcohol or drug addiction, for participation in a smoking-cessation program and for drugs to alleviate nicotine withdrawal that require a prescription
• Payments to participate in a weight-loss program for a specific disease or diseases, including obesity, diagnosed by a physician but not ordinarily, payments for diet food items or the payment of health club dues
• Payments for insulin and payments for drugs that require a prescription
• Payments for admission and transportation to a medical conference relating to a chronic disease that you, your spouse, or your dependents have (if the costs are primarily for and essential to necessitated medical care). However, you may not deduct the costs for meals and lodging while attending the medical conference
• Payments for false teeth, reading or prescription eyeglasses or contact lenses, hearing aids, crutches, wheelchairs, and for guide dogs for the blind or deaf
• 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, or ambulance or for medical 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 fees

You may not deduct funeral or burial expenses, over-the-counter medicines, toothpaste, toiletries, cosmetics, a trip or program for the general improvement of your health, or most cosmetic surgery. You may not deduct amounts paid for nicotine gum and nicotine patches, which do not require a prescription.
 

You may deduct as an expense any medicine or drug that is a prescribed drug (determined without regard to whether such drug is available without a prescription) or is insulin. A “prescription” means a written or electronic order for a medicine or drug that meets the legal requirements of a prescription in the state in which the medical expense is incurred and that is issued by an individual who is legally authorized to issue a prescription in that state.
 

You can only include the medical expenses you paid during the year. Your total deductible medical expenses for the year must be reduced by any reimbursement of deductible medical expenses. It makes no difference if you receive the reimbursement or if it is paid directly to the doctor, hospital, or other medical provider.

More details and examples are available on the IRS website, http://www.irs.gov/publications/p970/ch06.html,or the Webtax website, http://prep.1040.com/webtax.
 

Webtax is a tax specialist and accounting company with 13 offices in and around the Charlotte area. Webtax is family owned and operated, providing the same great service today  as  they did when they opened their doors over 50 years ago. To learn more visit http://prep.1040.com/webtax or call 704-568-6421.