Want to save money?

Here are some money-saving tax tips for people who have  prediabetes.

To get any tax deductions for prediabetes, there are two requirements. First – you have to itemize your taxes. Second,  your total medical expenses must be over 10 percent of your adjusted gross income (which unfortunately, this is common nowadays.)

For instance: If you earned $50,000 last and your health care expenses were $5,000, you cannot take any health care deduction because that’s “only” 10 percent of your adjusted gross income. But if your health care expenses were $6,214, then you can take $1,214 in write-offs. Note: if you are 65 or older, your health care expenses need to be only 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income.

So, say you are eligible for health care write offs. You then can deduct the following  prediabetes expenses:

• Test Strips:  Insurance may not pay for the horrifically expensive test strips because a diagnosis of prediabetes is different than a diagnosis of diabetes. In general,any health product that is sold over the counter is not tax deductible; however, the rules change for test strips  IF the doctor has prescribed them. So even though it’s not required, go ahead and ask (beg) your doctor for a regular prescription, then save the receipts.
• Glucose meters and lancets (again, enthusiastically ask for a prescription.)
• Transportation:  Transportation needed to manage a chronic condition is tax deductible. Seriously. That means that each time you drive to a doctor’s appointment and  discuss blood sugar, the mileage to and from that appointment is a write-off. Transportation is also deductible when you drive to get blood work done at a lab, or to a specialist such as an opthamologist to check on your eye health.
• Diet program memberships: If you are clinically obese, (have a body mass index of 30 or more) your doctor tells you to lose weight and suggests a specific program such as Weight Watchers, the membership fees are tax write offs.  If you are carrying around an extra 10 or 20 pounds you will have a BMI less than 39 and you cannot deduct membership fees.

While there’s no guarantee that people with prediabetes can write off some expenses, it’s certainly worth a try – and start keeping records now for 2017 income taxes!