Why doesn't the grocery expense for my live-in caregiver increase the amount of my refund?

[TinkerBell01]

I am itemizing my deductions because that is best for me. I have finished inputting all of the information for my taxes except for this. Just to save time I put in a fictitious number ($3,000.00) to see what difference it would make to see if it would be worth the time to add up all of the grocery receipts and the amount of my refund did not go up at all. Why?

[xmasbaby0]

Where are you trying to add grocery receipts?  There is no place on a federal tax return to enter grocery receipts.   Are you adding them to a state return?  What state?

[TinkerBell01]

You can add the groceries as part of the expense of a caregiver for medical expense purposes just like you can add dog food for a service dog. I divide the total amount of groceries and divide that amount by the number of people in the house. That portion is part of a live-in caregiver expense. But I did not see an increase in my deduction when I added it. I thought it would go up some. It is a lot to add so I wasn't going to do it if it didn't make much difference at all.  

[VolvoGirl · Accepted solution]

It could be that the Standard Deduction is still more than all your itemized deductions.

Or maybe you are already getting back all that you can and more deductions won't increase it.

Itemized Deductions or the Standard Deduction can only reduce your income to zero and not create a refund.  Then you only get back any withholding taken out.

[TinkerBell01]

Thank you so much VolvoGirl - you probably just saved me hours of unnecessary time spent on adding. I didn't realize that that is how it worked - that it could only reduce my income to zero and not create a refund and then I get back only the withholding taken out. You have just probably saved me hours of unnecessary time that could have been spent in the future too as I have been doing this every year thinking it made a difference.  Thanks again sooo much!!!:)