self employed health insurance deduction for mother-in-law

[ken999]

I am self employed. I have been providing over 1/2 support for my mother-in-law who gets social security. Can I include her medicare premiums and supplemental insurance premiums with my own as a business expense?

[rjs]

Probably not.

First of all, you would have to claim your mother-in-law as a dependent. You said you provide more than half of her support, but you didn't say that you claim her as a dependent. To do so, other requirements would have to be met besides paying more than half of her support.

In order to claim the deduction you would have to have paid the premiums. If she paid the premiums, or had them deducted from her Social Security benefits, you can't claim the deduction.

For the self-employed health insurance deduction, the policy would have to be in your name or in the name of your business. Your mother-in-law's Medicare certainly does not meet that requirement, and her supplemental policy probably doesn't either. So this requirement probably kills the idea.

[Mike9241]

technically self-employed health insurance is not a business expense reported on schedule C. it's an adjustment to income reported on schedule 1.   now if your M-I-L was an employee of your business the portion of medical insurance paid on her behalf would be a business expense.  of course, that also would require you to pay her minimum wage and file w-2's and payroll tax returns.