ATTENTION ALL SELF PAYS!!!
Did you know that you can deduct a percentage of the cost of your surgery (and any travel cost associated with it) on your taxes? Keep your receipts and present them when you file your taxes. If you had your surgery in the past three years and did not claim the deduction, you can do an amendment for the taxes from the year that you paid for your surgery. If you took an early withdrawal from a retirement plan to pay for your surgery, you are allowed a tax break on the early withdrawal penalty. As a matter of fact, all health care premiums and copays that come out of your pocket (to include dental and vision) are deductable. The mileage that you travel (roundtrip) for dr appointments and prescription pickup are deductable. Anything that your employer pays or reimburses you for is not deductable, but if you pay it you get a tax break at the end of the year. Hope this helps someone.
That's right Tri. To fle**** out a little more...people filing taxes are authorized to do either a standard deduction or an itemized deduction. The point of the deduction is to lower your taxable income (which has an affect on your expected refund). When you itemize your deductions, you want your itemized deductible expenses to add up to more than the standard deduction. Some tax preparers don't tell you that you have a choice or they discourage people from itemizing if they don't own a house or business. This is only because so many people are not aware of what they can deduct, don't save their receipts throughout the year, and end up with not enough deductions to equal more than the standard deduction (thus, making it more favorable to go with the standard deduction). Those commercials that H&R Block had out about the billions of dollars left on the table by people who did their own taxes were correct in the sense that people did not know about all the deductions they were allowed to take and thus didn't get the full refund that they were entitled to.
For example, the standard deduction for single filers last year was something like $5,900. If you donated clothes/household items to Goodwill/Salvation Army/thrift store (and kept a receipt that showed the fair market value of all the items that you donated), kept the receipts for prescriptions/doctor visits/copays, kept an account of all the mileage you drove or flew to medical appointments and prescription pick ups, kept an account of all the money you donated to church (tithes), bought a car during the year and kept the receipt showing the sales tax you paid, had unreimbursed employee expenses (buying safety equipment, paying union dues, buying work related literature), etc. during the year...all of that could possibly add up to more than $5,900. Let's just say it all added up to $6,100. That means that if your adjusted income is 30k, you would deduct $6,100 from your income instead of $5,900. That would make the amount of income you are taxed on $23,900 as opposed to $24,100. That has a positive affect on the amount of refund you get back.
The key is to do a little research and some calculations before you go to file. You should save your receipts during the year and go to the irs.gov website at tax time to find out what the standard deduction is for that tax year (it is not always the same every year). If you organize your deductions throughout the year (keeping receipts is a must, but using an excel spreadsheet will make it easier when it comes time to add it all up) you can add up all your itemized deductions at home and determine if it is worth your while to itemize when you file.
I know it sounds like a lot of work, but a little diligence could mean the difference of a few hundred dollars in your refund. I did this for my 2013 return and saw a significant difference on my refund. When I was preparing returns for clients, I saw the difference from the people who knew what they could deduct and those who didn't.
