Self employed medical insurance deduction of not?

[install4you]

Hi. Thanks for reading this.

     My wife and I are both retired (age 72) and filing jointly. My wife did unplanned paid tutoring earned $960 in 2024. I believe we must report this via Sched C but I'm open to being corrected if I'm wrong.

     Although both my wife & I have filed Sch C for self-employment in the past,  we have not been self employed (no Sched C) for a couple of years. This tutoring is by request and will only continue as long as the current students are being tutored--possibly a few weeks to beyond this year.

     We both pay for Medicare insurance via deductions from our monthly benefits. The Medicare coverage is managed as a Medicare Advantage plan through my wife's lifetime coverage from her teacher's retirement. I have the same coverage by paying the fee for spouse coverage (via deduction from her monthly distribution). My wife also has an individual dental policy we pay for directly.

     My question is  this--does any of this medical insurance qualify for the self-employment medical insurance deduction? If you have an answer, I'd appreciate you citing the basis for your answer from whatever IRS regulation applies.

Thanks, Eddie

[DianeW777]

Yes, you can use your Medicare premiums and the dental premiums as a self employed medical insurance deduction. You will find supporting information in the links below.

• Health Insurance Organization FAQs
• Form 7206 Instructions
• Where do I enter health insurance premiums if I'm self employed?

[install4you]

Thanks for answer.

I'm sorry I'm missing this but I can't find where to enter this info in TT H&O.

[KeshaH]

In TurboTax Home and Business (desktop version), on the Business tab, you would scroll down to Less Common Business Situations and click Start next to Self-employed Health Insurance.

[install4you]

I followed the steps you described and was taken to this screen:

As you can see the only option here is to click on "Continue." Clicking on "Continue" immediately returns me to the previous screen (the screen you included in your last reply). I'm not finding anywhere to enter this data. I see 4 possibilities: 1) I have selected some option somewhere else that prevents the needed data-entry fields from showing up; 2) I'm in the wrong place to enter this data; 3) there is some error in my installed copy of TT-H&O; or 4) there is truly a glitch in the matrix. At my current level of frustration, I'm leaning toward #4. 

I tried exiting TT, powering off & unplugging my laptop, and pressing the button that disconnects the battery momentarily so I could restart with a true cold boot.

So far, including research and attempts, I've spent about 6 hours on this. I apologize for my seeming helplessness here.  At one time, I was the go-to guy for technology...then I blinked. If there's some simple intuitive answer here, I'm just not intuiting right. 

Again, many thanks for your help.

Eddie

[Vanessa A]

You will enter your self-employed health insurance under business expenses in the same area where you enter liability insurance or most other expenses.  To do so select the following:

1. Open your business profile 
2. select Profit or Loss from business
3. Edit next to the business
4. Start or Update next to Other Common Business Expenses
5. Start next to Insurance Payments

[install4you]

Thanks for your patience & guidance. The insurance cost more than offset the whole amount of income leaving only the Social Security to pay.

I appreciate you taking your time to help me & others.

[install4you]

I just noticed that 3 people responded to my questions.

Thanks to all. I attribute my follow up questions to convincing another person it was a legit thing to deduct and my own difficulty finding my way through TT. Each answer was good.