If a plan participant needs a special diet that costs more than an ordinary, everyday diet, or had to have a hearing aid repaired, he or she can deduct those expenses.
Specially Prepared Foods
In Information Letter 2011-0035, the IRS said that if an individual consumes a special diet for medical reasons, the amount by which the cost of specially prepared foods exceeds the cost of food that would satisfy normal nutritional needs can be deducted as a qualified expense for medical care under Code Section 213.
An individual who seeks to make such a deduction must establish the medical purpose of the diet; for example, through a physician’s diagnosis. Objective factors that indicate that an otherwise personal expense is for medical care include:
- The taxpayer’s motive or purpose for making the expenditure
- Whether a physician has diagnosed a medical condition and recommended the item as treatment or mitigation
- Linkage between the treatment and the illness
- Treatment effectiveness
- Proximity in time to the onset or recurrence of a disease.
The taxpayer also must establish that the expense would not have been paid “but for” the disease or illness.
Hearing Aid Repair
The cost of hearing aid repairs also is a qualified medical expense under Section 213, according to the IRS in Information Letter 2011-0055.
Such expenses therefore are deductible.
That letter adds that hearing aid repair also can be reimbursed through a flexible spending account (FSA). But a caveat: while FSA
funds may be used to cover expenses incurred for hearing aid repairs, a plan is not obliged to cover such expenses. Whether or not the FSA will cover that expense depends upon the plan terms.
Re: Special Diet/Food Deductions
How is the amount over “normal” expense determined?