{"id":711,"date":"2016-01-05T15:44:38","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T20:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/?p=711"},"modified":"2016-01-04T15:44:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T20:44:56","slug":"claiming-medical-expenses-takes-the-burden-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/claiming-medical-expenses-takes-the-burden-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Claiming Medical Expenses Takes the Burden Away"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you are planning to claim your medical expenses when you file your tax return, you have to remember a few important <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/2025\/12\/08\/2025-overtime-tip-tax-deduction-schedule-1-a\/\">tips<\/a> in order to take a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/19\/new-auto-loan-interest-deduction-how-to-save-up-to-10000-on-your-taxes-2025-2028\/\">deduction<\/a> for your medical expenses.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Itemize <\/strong>\u2013 You are required to itemize your deductions if you want to claim medical expenses. You are not able to take the standard deduction for this purpose.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Threshold for AGI <\/strong>\u2013 You\u2019re supposed to include all the medical costs that you paid throughout the tax year, though you\u2019re only allowed to deduct expenses that are greater than 10% of your adjusted gross income.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Taxpayers Age 65 <\/strong>\u2013 a temporary AGI threshold of 7.5% exists for taxpayers or their spouses who are age 65 or older, and is in effect through the last day of December 2016.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Eligible expenses <\/strong>\u2013 As long as you paid for expenses incurred by you, your spouse or dependents, you can likely include the costs. There are special exceptions that apply, and any reimbursed expenses, such as those paid for by insurance, are not eligible for deduction.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Travel costs <\/strong>\u2013 You are able to claim travel expenses related to medical care. This can be public transportation, tolls, parking fees, or ambulance charges. If you use your own car for medical travel, you can deduct the expenses using either the standard mileage rate or the actual costs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No double dipping <\/strong>\u2013 you can\u2019t deduct expenses that you paid using a Flexible Spending Arrangement, or Health Savings Account, as those amounts are typically not taxed. This stops taxpayers from getting multiple benefits for the same expense.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you are planning to claim your medical expenses when you file your tax return, you have to remember a few important tips in order to take a deduction for your medical expenses. Itemize \u2013 You are required to itemize your deductions if you want to claim medical expenses. You are not able to take [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[399,23,218,291],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deductions-2","tag-eligible-expenses","tag-medical-expenses","tag-standard-deduction","tag-travel-expenses"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Claiming Medical Expenses Takes the Burden Away - eTax.com\u00ae Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.etax.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/claiming-medical-expenses-takes-the-burden-away\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Claiming Medical Expenses Takes the Burden Away - eTax.com\u00ae Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If you are planning to claim your medical expenses when you file your tax return, you have to remember a few important tips in order to take a deduction for your medical expenses. Itemize \u2013 You are required to itemize your deductions if you want to claim medical expenses. 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