Can I Deduct Long-Term Care Expenses on My Tax Return?

If you need long-term care, you may need to know, "How can I deduct long term care expenses on my tax return ?  If you purchased a long-term-care insurance policy to cover the costs, you may also be able to deduct some of that. Retirement planning entails long-term care, so it’s critical to know how these tax deductions can help offset overall costs.

Kiplinger’s recent article, “Deduct Expenses for Long-Term Care on Your Tax Return,” explains that you can deduct unreimbursed costs for long-term care as a medical expense, including eligible expenses for in-home, assisted living and nursing-home services. However, certain requirements must be met. The long-term care must be medically necessary and can include preventive, therapeutic, treating, rehabilitative, personal care, or other services. The cost of meals and lodging at an assisted-living facility or nursing home is also included, if the main reason for being there is to get qualified medical care.

The care must also be for a chronically ill person and given under a care plan prescribed by a licensed health care practitioner. A person is “chronically ill,” if he or she can’t perform at least two activities of daily living—like eating, bathing or dressing—without help for at least 90 days. This condition must be certified in writing within the past year. A person with a severe cognitive impairment is also deemed to be chronically ill, if supervision is needed to protect his or her health and safety.

To claim the deduction, you must itemize deductions on your tax return. Itemized deductions for medical expenses are only allowed to the extent they exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income in 2019. An adult child can claim a medical expense deduction on his own tax return for the cost of a parent’s care, if he can claim the parent as a dependent.

The IRS also permits a limited deduction for certain long-term-care insurance premiums. You must submit an itemized deduction for medical expenses, and only premiums exceeding the 10% of AGI threshold are deductible in 2019. Further, the insurance policy itself must satisfy certain requirements for the premiums to be deductible. For instance, it can only cover long-term-care services. This limitation means the deduction only applies to traditional long-term-care policies, rather than hybrid policies that combine life insurance with long-term-care benefits. The deduction has an age-related cap.

These deductions are typically not useful for people in their fifties or sixties but can be valuable for people in their seventies and older. That’s because income tends to drop in retirement, so the deductions can have a greater overall impact on tax liability. As you age, you’re also more likely to have medical expenses exceeding 10% of AGI. Those deductions could move your total itemized deductions past the standard deduction amount. The chances of satisfying the medical necessity requirements for the care costs deduction also increase with age, and the cap for the premium deduction levels off after age 70.

Reference: Kiplinger (September 4, 2019) “Deduct Expenses for Long-Term Care on Your Tax Return”