This is to clarify other posts that focus on Publication 502 as the sole guidance for service animal expenses for medical deductions. Although Publication 502 retains the adjective “physical” (“You can include in medical expenses the costs of buying, training, and
maintaining a guide dog or other service animal to assist a
visually-impaired or hearing-impaired person, or a person with other physical disabilities.”) (emphasis added). Emotional Support Animals expenses can qualify... The
costs of buying, training, and maintaining a service animal to assist
an individual with mental disabilities may qualify as medical care
if the taxpayer can establish that the taxpayer is using the service
animal primarily for medical care to alleviate a mental defect or
illness and that the taxpayer would not have paid the expenses but for
the disease or illness. Reference: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/10-0129.pdf and http://doglawreporter.blogspot.com/2010/07/irs-affirms-deductibility-of.html
