We file jointly. We made a little over $87,000 gross income together. We had over $9,100 in out of pocket medical expenses. Can we itemize that for medical deductions?

[DoninGA]

Since you are filing as Married Filing Jointly your Standard Deduction is $27,700 if you are both under the age of 65.  You would need over $27,700 of itemized deduction to have any tax benefit on your tax return.

Medical expenses are entered on Schedule A as an itemized deduction.  Then only the amount of expenses greater than 7.5% of the Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) can be entered as an itemized medical deduction.

[Vanessa A]

If you made $87,000, you would only be able to deduct $4,500 as itemized medical expense deduction as the medical expenses are limited to 7.5% of your AGI. 

Itemized expenses include mortgage interest,  charitable contributions, state and local taxes up to $10,000, medical expenses in excess of 7.5% of your AGI and casualty and losses in excess of 10% of you AGI with the first $100 not counting towards the loss.  Your health insurance and all medical expenses are only deductible for the amount that is over 7.5% of your AGI.  This means if your AGI is $50,000, then the amount that is over $3,750 is deductible.  

Then your total itemized expenses would need to be greater than your standard deduction below in order to benefit from your expenses 

The 2023 Standard Deductions are as follows:

• Married Filing Joint (MFJ)              $27,700
• Married Filing Separate (MFS)      $13,850
• Head of Household (HOH)             $20,800 
• Single                                                     $13,850                                

Blind or over 65 and MFJ or MFS add $1,500

Single or HOH if blind or over 65 add $1,850

Standard versus Itemized Deduction