tax credit for medical expenses - shared risk?

[Anonymous]

I know that if you spend above a certain percentage of your AGI on medical care you get a tax break on the amount spent. Does anyone know if payment for a shared risk IVF qualifies as well? Since you are paying for more than one cycle, I can see how the IRS may not think that qualifies. But, on paper it is just a $20k payment to a doctor so why shouldn't it qualify? Any tax expert out there? Or IRS inspectors?

[Anonymous]

In 2006 I paid for the Shared Risk Program, which was $24K. I was unsure and have the same questions you had but claimed it on my taxes anyway! Well, early of this year I got a letter from the IRS that I was being autdited!!!! (reminds me of that Roseanne show) Fortunately, I was cleared and the IRS accepted my claim! So to answer yuor question, I'd defitely claim it on your taxes so yuo can get a huge tax break! The IRS actually owed me!

[Anonymous]

On a related note - has anyone tried paying for shared risk out of flex-spending? can you get reimbursed for the shared risk payment even before the IVF (hopefully) works, or do you have to wait until you know for sure if you will get your money back or if the IVF was successful?

[Anonymous]

OP here. After I posted this I actually went to the IRS website and somewhere in all the gobble-de-gook it actually said that you can only claim payments made during the tax year even if the medical treatment was received in a different year. So I took that to mean it would be okay! As for the flex question, I know that people have a heck of a time getting them to accept payment for prospective orthodontia so I am not sure if they would allow that. Meaning, if you have to pay $5k for ortho because over the next year your child will have all kinds of appts for braces, flex won't cover it because they are not billing for actual performed services. Is it possible to use your flex for the meds instead? That's what I'm doing so I don't have to deal with the hassle of trying to convince flex to cover the shared risk. Keep in mind though - whatever portion you have covered under flex cannot go towards the medical exemption as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As for the flex question, I know that people have a heck of a time getting them to accept payment for prospective orthodontia so I am not sure if they would allow that. Meaning, if you have to pay $5k for ortho because over the next year your child will have all kinds of appts for braces, flex won't cover it because they are not billing for actual performed services.

Probably best to ask your plan administrator about that. We had to pay upfront for Invisalign (sp?) and there were no problems getting reimbursed by FSA.

[Anonymous]

Flex spending doesn't pay until you've had the treatment. I can't see how Flex would know how much payment goes to how much ortho, so there should be an easy way around. One difference between classic wire braces and invisalign is that the invisalign braces are handed to the dr in a big box up front. The expense (creating them) is actually complete when you pay and put the first one in your mouth. With classic ortho, it may be different.

IRS doesn't care about timing of treatment, but only about timing of the payment. They also don't care what you had done.