For Oregon State Return: Do Long Term Care insurance premiums qualify as medical expenses for subtraction from income for filers 65 ?

[rboydor]

Long Term Care insurance premiums appear to be deductible on federal returns.  Do they qualify as medical expenses for the State of Oregon?

[ErnieS0]

Long-term care insurance premiums are deductible for Oregon income taxes to the extent they are deductible for federal.

TurboTax will move all you eligible medical expenses from federal to Oregon.

In general you can deduct only the part of your medical and dental expenses that exceeds 7.5% of the amount of your federal adjusted gross income.

Oregon also has a medical subtraction for certain taxpayers age 66 and over.

You may qualify for the special Oregon medical subtraction if:

• You or your spouse turned age 66 by the end of the tax year
• Your federal AGI isn’t more than $200,000 ($100,000 if your filing status is single or married filing separately); and
• You or your spouse have qualifying medical or dental expenses. Medical or dental expenses qualify if they can be included in itemized deductions.

See Special Oregon medical subtraction [code 351].

[tj-21]

ErnieS0,

If I understand you correctly, we may itemize our medical deductions, including our Long Term Care premiums on our Oregon return on OR-A (itemized deductions) and in addition we can take the "Special Oregon Medical Subtraction" my husband is over 66.

So we can take both deductions? it's not "either or", the wording on Schedule OR-ASC is confusing. It says:

You can’t subtract expenses:
• For anyone under age 66;
• For dependents, regardless of their age; or
• That are deducted elsewhere on your return.

I interpret the last bullet as meaning the federal return, since the worksheet tells you to use the info from OR-A, which is the total amount of medical and the calculation(subtracting 7.5% of our AGI threshold from our total medical deduction).

Thanks, Appreciate your help!

[DMarkM1]

Yes, you will enter your medical expenses including long term care premiums in the federal interview under the "Medical" topic.  The entries there even if not used as itemized deductions on your federal return will be used to calculate the special medical subtraction for the qualifying taxpayer on the OR return. 

In the OR state interview you will be asked to enter the amount of medical expenses entered that can be allocated to the qualifying taxpayer (age 66 or older) for the OR special medical subtraction.