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Posted by Harlan Lunsford on October 16, 2007, 1:19 am
Please log in for more thread options San Diego CPA wrote:
>> I recently attended an Emeriti Council meeting at my
>> university at which numerous emeritus faculty members (most
>> of them still totally savvy intellectually, some of them MDs
>> themselves) recounted horror story after horror story of
>> confusing, confused, grossly incorrect, invalid,
>> uninterpretable, or totally unjustified billings for medical
>> care; correspondingly incorrect or incompetent processing of
>> and decisions about these bills by private and government
>> insurance payors and benefits plans; and almost total
>> inability to get useful assistance in dealing with these
>> organizations -- in short, all the other usual consequences
>> of dealing with the U.S. health care system.
>>
>> A senior human resources/staff benefits professional from
>> our university participating in the meeting noted that the
>> error rate for medical billings is commonly estimated to be
>> in the range of 30% of all transactions involved.
>>
>> I just signed a $495 check for services provided over the
>> past few months by a professional accountant whose primary
>> role is as a specialist and consulting in sorting out these
>> problems. When we first approached her for help, she said
>> in essence "Just bring in the whole proverbial 'shoebox'
>> full of confusing and uninterpretable documents resulting
>> from your wife's recent two-year-long medical adventure [it
>> was really more like a banker's box than a shoebox in our
>> case]; don't bother trying to sort anything out; I'll do
>> that, tell you what bills you still have to pay, file the
>> claims for those you don't, and do the paperwork to recover
>> the payments you shouldn't have made." She did so, and has
>> been more than worth her services.
>>
>> I'm planning on deducting her fee as a *medical* expense --
>> right?
> This expense is clearly not a medical expense, however, I
> would agree with deducting as a Misc Itemized Deduction
> subject to 2% of AGI. These expenses are clearly related to
> preservation of income producing property (i.e., preserving
> investable assets by preventing unnecessary overpayment of
> medical expenses). Depending in level of income, expenses
> in question, AMT issues and the like, the taxpayer will
> probably get no real tax benefit, but I think this is the
> most appropriate treatment.
So you're saying that the "income producing property" is
the body of the taxpayer? Not even a judge in a court of
law would agree to such an extension of terms.
Why not a deduction for loss of utility as we become older,
then?
ChEAr$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA
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