Medical Professional Expenses

[francesmarinafeng]

After I entered the medical professional expenses work sheet, the sum is not being carried into the box of the item. program problem?

[RayW7]

In 2020, the IRS allows all taxpayers to deduct the total qualified unreimbursed medical care expenses for the year that exceeds 7.5% of their adjusted gross income.

Your adjusted gross income (AGI) is your taxable income minus any adjustments to income such as contributions to a traditional IRA and student loan interest.

Claiming the medical expenses deduction

To claim the medical expenses deduction, you must itemize your deductions. Itemizing requires that you not take the standard deduction, so you should only claim the medical expenses deduction if your itemized deductions are greater than your standard deduction (TurboTax will do this calculation for you).

If you elect to itemize, you must use IRS Form 1040 to file your taxes and attach Schedule A.

• On Schedule A, report the total medical expenses you paid during the year on line 1 and your adjusted gross income (from your Form 1040) on line 2.
• Enter 7.5% of your adjusted gross income on line 3.
• Enter the difference between your expenses and 7.5% of your adjusted gross income on line 4.
• The resulting amount on line 4 will be subtracted from your adjusted gross income to reduce your taxable income for the year.
• If this amount, plus any other itemized deductions you claim, is less than your standard deduction, you should not itemize.

Remember, TurboTax will ask you simple questions about your expenses, tell you which deductions you qualify for, and fill in all the right forms for you.

[CEGRKE]

I know the tax law but the program will not let me enter my professional medical expenses.  How can I know which is better if I can't enter all my tax deductions???

[ToddL99]

Please describe what "professional medical expenses" you want to claim/deduct and what version of TurboTax you are using.

[SweetieJean]

If you cannot type into the boxes, try a different browser.  Also, those TT medical expense categories are just for your use, as only the total ends up on the tax return. You can just add everything together and make a single entry.  I personally keep a spreadsheet of these all year, and then enter just the sum into TT.

Also note that Medical expense deduction floors/caps may be different for State than for federal.