@Stevehofwa wrote:
Ok, I’m actually looking into amending a return. My father(86) suffered a breakdown and tried to kill himself. Went to the hospital for a while, and then was moved to an assisted living facility from his home, where we hired people to watch him for a few weeks, on the advice of the hospital physician. Things settled down, but he remained at the assisted living facility with some hired help/supervision until his death(natural) the next year. In the year if the incident, the home health aide costs were deducted, as well as the fee the assisted facility charged for monitoring medications, etc, which was extra. He did not require bathing help, help eating, bathroom, etc., and we hired the health aides to assist otherwise. Is all or part of the assisted living room and board deductible?
What a tough situation.
Firstly, you can only deduct medical expenses that you paid if your father was your tax dependent, or he could have been your tax dependent because you paid more than half his total support, and the reason he is disqualified from being a tax dependent is that his taxable income was over $4300. Your father could deduct medical expenses he paid himself on his tax returns, including his final tax return that you or someone else would have prepared for him the year he died.
You can also only deduct expenses in the year you paid them. If you paid expenses over 2 years, they would go on two different tax returns. And whether you get an actual tax benefit depends on your total financial circumstances.
Now, what is a deductible medical expense in this situation?
If a person is in a nursing home primarily for medical services, the entire cost is a deductible medical expense. That's not the case here.
If a person is in assisted living, only nursing services are deductible. Nursing services don't have to be provided by a nurse, but they have to be the kind of services that nurses perform (like dispensing medication, assistance with dressing, eating, toileting, and so on). The facility would have to provide a breakdown for you. Costs for room and board, laundry, and other things are not deductible.
However, if your father was "chronically ill" then the entire cost of assisted living can be counted as a medical expense. Chronically ill in this case would mean that:
- a doctor certified that your father was a danger to himself or others, due to illness or cognitive impairment
- the facility had a care plan that was prepared by an appropriate professional and reviewed at least once a year.
Where you might have a problem is the "cognitive impairment" part of the regulation. Just being an ornery son-of-a-gun probably isn't enough, and the regulation specifies "cognitive impairment" and not general psychological conditions like depression. But maybe he had or was suspected of having some type of organic brain illness that changed his personality, like one of the dementias (and there are many types, not just AD). You may want to discuss the situation with his physician or the medical or social services staff at the facility.
