Dear Turbotax Community,
My 2024 ended with the first two major medical surprises of my life. And the handling of that raises a couple 2024 tax questions that I sure didn't expect to be having. It has been an eye-opening how medical surprises rapidly change the tax landscape.
For context, I was a California resident for the whole 2024 year, and I've only worked at one company for the whole time. So all that is simple.
I have these questions.
1. For the months of Oct, Nov, and Dec 2024 I was on a medical leave of absence from work and was receiving payments from California's Employment Development Department (EDD) State Disability Insurance (SDI). SDI provided "wage replacement" (on the order of maybe 60% of my normal paycheck) for the 3-month period that I was on the medical leave. I've read and been told (by non-experts) that the SDI payments are not taxable. And therein lies these questions:
Are the California SDI wage replacement wage replacement checks really tax free?
If they are tax-free, is there some place in my taxes (using Turbotax, of course) where I need to declare these checks?
2. The second topic is with regard to medical expenses. I had a variety of medical expenses, including emergency room billing, hospital stay, rehab/nursing stay, etc. Insurance paid some of that, leaving some to me (of course):
May I include my out-of-pocket insurance co-payments as deductible medical expenses?
(For example, the co-pay for the hospital stay, the co-pay for each doctor/lab/whatever appointment, the co-pay for all of the prescription medications, etc.)
Then there's the heavy hitter: I had very large out-of-pocket expenses for a company that provided me with essential in-house assistance (while I was bed-ridden). This company (Momentra Care) provides in-home caregivers and related services. Their services were considered required by my primary physician, but my insurance would not pay for any of it. (This was a significant percent of my total 2024 wages.)
May include my out-of-pocket expense for this Momentra Care in-home care as a medical expense on my taxes?
I want to thank any federal/California tax folks that can help with (I hope) simple answers and direction for these questions.
Blessings,
Doug
