You can deduct medical expenses for your self, or a dependent. In the case of an adult daughter, you can deduct their medical expenses even if they do not qualify as a dependent, as long as you pay more than half their total support costs.
Regarding assisted living, you can generally only deduct the percentage of the cost that is for medical expenses or nursing care. Nursing care does not need be performed by a nurse as long as the services are of a kind generally performed by a nurse. This includes services connected with caring for the patient's condition, such as giving medication or changing dressings, as well as bathing and grooming the patient. Costs for room and board, laundry, and companionship are not deductible. The facility should provide a cost breakdown for you.
However, you can deduct the entire cost of assisted living as a medical expense if you meet two tests.
1. The patient is chronically ill. This means that in the past 12 months, a doctor has certified that either
- The individual is unable to perform at least two activities of daily living without substantial assistance from another individual, due to a loss of functional capacity. Activities of daily living are eating, toileting, transferring, bathing, dressing, and continence, or
- The individual requires substantial supervision to be protected from threats to health and safety due to severe cognitive impairment.
2. The patient is receiving care according to a written care plan prescribed by a licensed health care practitioner.
If your daughter meets the definition of chronically ill (unable to care for herself or is a danger to herself), but you do not have a prescribed care plan, then only her nursing costs are deductible medical expenses now, but future assisted living expenses could be deductible if you get a written care plan.
If your daughter does not have medical expenses, there is no where else to deduct them.
