Yes. Do the IVF medical deduction on your 2011 taxes!

Count Choculitis

Just wanted to share my good experience on getting money back from the IRS for my IVF procedure -- in the hopes that someone on here might be in a similar position.

 My husband and I spent $20,000 on a "shared risk" program and then about $4,000 additional on medication and non-covered procedures (that weren't included in the shared risk fee). 

As it turns out, the IRS is much more trusting and less demanding of medical records than I was afraid they'd be. With my tax return, I presented a receipt from Shady Grove Fertility that simply stated that the amount received was $20,000 for IVF shared risk, and that one piece of paper was enough. 

To back up my story I had Shady Grove print out a full register of everything I'd paid outside of the $20K.  I also got a printout from the fertility medication supplier I got my meds from.

 To make a long story short, it was a total pain in the a55, but they will allow you to reduce your taxable income by the amount you paid on IVF and uncovered medical expenses in excess of 7.5% of your adjusted gross income.  In my case, I got back about $3,400. 

I hope I don't sound like I'm gloating - I really just wanted to share my story so that other women know that you can reclaim some of the money!

 Now as for the time and pain and anguish...well - you'll never get reimbursed for that.  But your little baby/babies can help with that.

tgreenf

Thats awesome!  DH is a tax accountant so we are doing the same thing and he had me getting paperwork all along so that I was on top of it come tax time! :-)

vanessagorc

Awesome!!  We have never qualified bc we don't reach the percentage of income spent, to qualify.  But glad people are getting the deductions!!!!!! 

theboki

You should always keep every single medical receipt.  And dont forget parking receipts. Our medical deduction this year is almost as high as our income. We have receipts for everything, but our tax guy has prepared us to expect a good possibility of an audit this year. 

 

Count Choculitis

theboki:

You should always keep every single medical receipt.  And dont forget parking receipts. Our medical deduction this year is almost as high as our income. We have receipts for everything, but our tax guy has prepared us to expect a good possibility of an audit this year. 

 

That is so awesome.  We never kept track of our mileage to and from the IVF center in Rockville (an hour-long drive)....but I kicked myself when I realized that we could have.  Congrats on the hefty refund you have coming your way. Sounds like if they audit you, you're gonna be prepared!

amandaleigh1

I just did my taxes yesterday and normally I just take the standard deduction because we are not homeowners. This year though we had over 26k in medical expenses, so I tried seeing what that would do to our taxes. I also found a few other types of deductions I could take. All in all, it was much better for us to itemize and use the medical expense deduction as well. So glad we could recoup something.

 I had no plans to show my receipts unless asked. Is this unwise? 

tgreenf

amandaleigh1:

I just did my taxes yesterday and normally I just take the standard deduction because we are not homeowners. This year though we had over 26k in medical expenses, so I tried seeing what that would do to our taxes. I also found a few other types of deductions I could take. All in all, it was much better for us to itemize and use the medical expense deduction as well. So glad we could recoup something.

 I had no plans to show my receipts unless asked. Is this unwise? 

 

You don't necessarily need to show them right now.  But I would certainly have them ready and available.  Its a known fact that they have a tendency to audit returns with medical deductions more than any other return.  So just to be safe, have yourself covered!   That way you don't have to try to go back a year or two from now and try to dig up everything.  

Jeepie Doll

That is awesome!  We have been planning to do that next year since IVF was done this year.  So helpful and worth it!

kelnyc

I saved every receipt and was able to claim almost $15k, which was the amount we paid over our insurance coverage amount. Woot!

(PS- I did my own taxes with turbotax and it will tell you how much you need to have spent to be allowed to claim. It must be at least 7.5% of your income, which we just cleared. Yay!) 

Count Choculitis

Yep. It's definitely good practice to not include anything in your medical deduction that you don't have proof of.  I actually went as far as to get not ony a receipt, but also a bank statement showing the payment clearing my account...in case they try to say that although the amount was billed, I might not have actually paid the doctor for it.

 Another interesting thing about my situation that might apply to other women's IVF experience:

1) My now-husband (we weren't married when we were doing IVF) paid $10,000 - or half - of the shared risk fee and I paid the other half.  We were married on Sept. 1, 2011, so for tax purposes we were considered married for the entire year.  That enabled me (because we did "married filing separately") to claim the entire $20,000 shared risk fee, including the half that he paid.

2) To make the situation even more interesting, the $20,000 was the total of money given to us by our respecive parents as"early wedding gifts".  So his parents kicked in $10,000 and so did mine.  But because we deposited their gifts into our own accounts, and then wrote the check for the doctor from our own accounts, it did not appear that a "third party" was paying our medical expenses, which would have disqualified it as a medical expense that WE could claim. 

theboki

amandaleigh1:

I just did my taxes yesterday and normally I just take the standard deduction because we are not homeowners. This year though we had over 26k in medical expenses, so I tried seeing what that would do to our taxes. I also found a few other types of deductions I could take. All in all, it was much better for us to itemize and use the medical expense deduction as well. So glad we could recoup something.

 I had no plans to show my receipts unless asked. Is this unwise? 

Like PP said, you don't need to show them unless audited.   Just have them handy in case you do.  We are hoping to be skipped by the IRS, but if not, we're ready.