80 Medical Expenses That Can be Itemized on Your Taxes

Do you have medical expenses? Do you itemize your taxes? Do you own a home?

While one usually doesn’t have a lot of “great” things to say about the IRS, they do give some pretty awesome legal ways to deduct expenses.

The IRS provides two methods: Standard Deduction or Itemization

Standardization is where you are allow to take a certain deduction based on if you are married, single, widowed, head of household OR married filing as single. This is a standard amount and is predetermined based on your status. There is no wiggle room here.

Itemization is where you are able to deduct items off the your taxes either at cost or at the amount predetermined by the IRS.

For more information you can find the IRS explanation here.

Did you know that owning a home has another benefit?

While there are people in the world that have enough items to deduct off of the IRS list of allowed deductions without a home most people need the interest and tax deduction of a owning a home to make itemizing worth it. This is one more reason as  discussed on our tax article series where owning a home is very beneficial for your taxes.

Here is a list of all the allowed tax deduction on the IRS found here

What people don’t realize is that you can take medical expenses above 10% AGI (adjust gross income).

While for many of us our bills after insurance payment (no double dipping) is not high enough. Those who have chronic illness or family member does then this could be a great tax deduction.

Here are the 80 medical tax deductions that the IRS allows:

1. Acupuncture
2. Alcoholism
3. Ambulance
4. Annual Physical Examination
5. Artificial Limb
6. Artificial Teeth
7. Bandages
8. Birth Control Pills
9. Body Scan
10. Braille Books and Magazines
11. Breast Pumps and Supplies
12. Breast Reconstruction Surgery
13. Capital Expenses
14. Car
15. Chiropractor
16. Christian Science Practitioner
17. Contact Lenses
18. Crutches
19. Dental Treatment
20. Diagnostic Devices
21. Disabled Dependent Care Expenses
22. Drug Addiction
23. Drugs
24. Eye Exam
25. Eyeglasses
26. Eye Surgery
27. Fertility Enhancement
28. Founder’s Fee
29. Guide Dog or Other Service Animal
30. Health Institute
31. Health Maintenance Organization (HMO)
32. Hearing Aids
33. Home Care
34. Home Improvements
35. Hospital Services
36. Insurance Premiums
37. Intellectually and Developmentally Disabled, Special Home for
38. Laboratory Fees
39. Lactation Expenses
40. Lead-Based Paint Removal
41. Learning Disability
42. Legal Fees
43. Lifetime Care—Advance Payments
44. Lodging
45. Long-Term Care
46. Meals
47. Medical Conferences
48. Medical Information Plan
49. Medicines
50. Nursing Home
51. Nursing Services
52. Operations
53. Optometrist
54. Organ Donors
55. Osteopath
56. Oxygen
57. Physical Examination
58. Pregnancy Test Kit
59. Prosthesis
60. Psychiatric Care
61. Psychoanalysis
62. Psychologist
63. Reproductive Services
64. Special Education
65. Sterilization
66. Stop-Smoking Programs
67. Surgery
68. Telephone
69. Television
70. Therapy
71. Transplants
72. Transportation
73. Trips
74. Tuition
75. Vasectomy
76. Vision Correction Surgery
77. Weight-Loss Program
78. Wheelchair
79. Wig
80. X-ray

While there are always strings attached, the biggest key is that these have to be out of pocket expenses. They don’t let you double dip from expenses that your insurance has always covered.

Having a medical condition can be expensive. So don’t miss out on the help that the IRS does offer.

What has your experience been? Do you deduct your medical expenses? Have they affected your taxes?