Hi All Long-Term Care Experts,
I was wondering about being able to deduct the care costs of my mom's assisted living. This includes costs such as bathing, dressing, medication management, etc. She has chronic medical conditions. Certainly, these are deductible as medical expenses when one does not receive long term care benefits.
However, when one does receive long term care benefits from a long-term care insurance policy, then I wanted to understand to what extent these expenses are still deductible. One would think that they would not be deductible, particularly if long term care per-diem benefits exceed long-term care costs (including both care costs and room rent). However, it seems this is not the case. It seems that as long as the long term care plan is a qualified plan and as long as per-diem benefit limits are not exceeded, then it does not matter what the long term care costs are, i.e. they could taken as $0 or they could be taken as the rent cost or they could be taken as the cost of rent plus care costs. In any of these cases, the long term care payments are deemed "not taxable".
Given this, it seems that the care costs at my mom's assisted living could be deducted as medical expenses. Seems like a bit of double-dipping but I can't find anything that would prohibit this deduction. That's what I'm looking for. Is there a tax requirement that prohibits? I will say further, that in past years, I (via myself and my mom's accountant) have not taken this medical expense deduction thinking that it was double-dipping. Now, that my mom's long term care benefits have expired (as of June 31 this year), I am thinking these deductions could have been taken in past years too.
Thanks much for your assistance.
