Long term care (LTC) is always associated with big expenditures and this is the reason nobody wants to grow old, let alone receive care in a nursing home as this can easily drain one’s resources in less than a year. Perhaps, if there is any consolation in receiving expensive LTC services that would be the long term care tax breaks.
According to the tax guidelines of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), long term care is considered a medical expense and therefore treated as a deductible. Medical expenses can be anything from doctor fees, laboratory tests, costs of fare to and from the hospital, prescription drugs, to services acquired in LTC facilities such as assisted living centers and nursing homes, or those from in-home care.
Any individual receiving LTC can treat the expenses which he has incurred in a nursing home, community-based LTC facility, or from in-home care as deductible as long as these exceed 7.5% of his adjusted gross income (AGI).
By the way, it is not only your medical expenses which may be treated as tax deductions but even those of your dependents such as children, spouse, and parents.
For example, your 75-year-old mother fractured her hip when she fell off the stairs in your house and this resulted in her inability to move about and perform the simplest activities of daily living (ADLs) without assistance. You hired a home health aide to assist your mother daily during mealtime, bathing, dressing, and toileting among others.
Aside from the home health aide, you also spent a chunk of money for your mom’s regular therapy sessions so by the end of the year your mom’s total LTC expenses would’ve totaled to $40,000. If your AGI is $80,000, you can treat the total amount of your mom’s LTC expenses as a deductible because it exceeds 7.5% of $80,000.
Other Long Term Care Tax Breaks
Now if you’re not capable of covering your LTC expenses from out-of-pocket, you can buy a long term care insurance (LTCI) policy and receive significant tax deductions from your annual premiums.
According to the IRS, your age at the end of the tax year will correspond to the amount of your LTCI premiums that shall be treated as medical expense and thus eligible for income tax deduction. For example, if you are over 40 years old but younger than 50 at the end of the tax year, your deductible limit is $660. Meanwhile, if you are 60 or older but younger than 70 at the close of the taxable year, your premium which totaled to $3,500 shall be treated as a deductible.
Every year, the deductible limit of LTCI policyholders increases to keep pace with inflation. Now if you are also responsible for paying the annual premiums of a loved one’s tax-qualified LTCI policy, you can also treat that as a medical expense and it will be included in the computation of your total income tax deduction.
As the cost of care continues to rise, it’s worth taking notice of long term care tax breaks as these will undoubtedly give you some degree of financial relief.