HarryTheSpider

In AZ can you deduct costs of general meds for tax purposes?

e.g. buying pain killers from Walgreens, allergy tablets etc?

fatbrit

Most people can't deduct medical expenses from their taxes. The exception is if you itemize (which, for most people, means that you have a large mortgage since otherwise you might as well take the standard deductions) AND your medical expenses exceed a proportion of your income.

Bluegrass Lass

Are you talking about state or federal taxes? I have no idea what AZ rules might be. For federal, I think the medical expenses have to be 7.5% or more of your income in order to deduct them. You cannot include the cost of your monthly premiums if you have a policy through your company. I think thee are some other rules that I can't quite remember at this time..sorry!

Noorah101

To my knowledge, you cannot deduct over-the-counter medicines. You can only deduct prescription medicines, if you itemize.

Rene

HarryTheSpider

I'm talking about AZ state taxes - I'm aware of the situation for federal taxes.

md95065

Like most states, Arizona appears to start with your Federal itemized deductions and then make certain adjustments to them.

The instructions for adjustments to itemized deductions appear to indicate that while Arizona doesn't limit the deductions to the amount that exceeds 7.5% of your Federal AGI they do limit the categories of allowable expenses themselves to be the same as the ones that are allowed on the Federal return.

AZ_Alba

As these would be over the counter (OTC) I would suspect that they are not covered. My flexible spending account which is pre tax does not cover OTC items as the Feds took this away a couple years ago. If you can get the doctor to write a prescription for them then you would be covered, but the doctor co-pay and prescription co-pay costs generally make this uneconomic.

Rete

My flex spending does cover O/C drugs as well as health related items, i.e. humidifiers, etc.

Sally Redux

Mine has stopped allowing this unless on prescription. I think it's a new law.

Yorkieabroad

Really? I thought they stopped that this year?

Actually, I take that back - they stopped it for HSA's, not sure about FSA's - I just assumed it was the same.....oops.