Medical expense deduction
What you paid for a parent's care may be deductible even if their income is too high to claim them.
What it means
The deduction reaches medical care of the taxpayer, a spouse or a dependent — and for this purpose 'dependent' is defined without the gross-income test.
So the relationship and the more-than-half support tests still apply, but a parent whose income is too high to be claimed can still be a dependent for what was spent on their care.
Medical care is defined broadly: it includes transportation essential to care, qualified long-term care services, and premiums including Medicare Part B and qualified long-term care insurance. A medicine counts only if prescribed, or if it is insulin.
It bites only above a percentage floor measured against the payer's own adjusted gross income.
Why it matters
It is the distinction most people miss, and it is the one that most often turns a year of paying for care into something.
It also means the sibling who paid the bills and the sibling who claims the dependency need not be the same person.
When you are likely to meet it
- After a year of paying for a parent's care.
- When a parent's income puts them just over the dependency threshold.
Related terms
Official sources
The authority this page describes, at the agency that publishes it. Sahvelo does not restate a rule from a secondary source.