Gfcf diet and tax deductible question
I just read on turbotax that among the allowable deductible medicalexpenses (if your total med expenses come to over 7.5% of AGI) forfederal taxes is “special diet supplies, if prescribed by a doctor.”
I have a DAN doctor who reccomends/requires the GFCF diet, so thedoctor prescription part shouldn’t be a problem, but I certainlyhaven’t kept all my grocery store receipts, especially since we areable to get many of our “special foods” at the regular grocery store. Has anyone else done this on their taxes, and how did it work out?How about supplements? We can certainly use all the dedutions we canget, but I don’t want to get audited or anything.
This post tagged as: grocery store, gfcf diet, supplements
Shane Dearmond said,
Wrote on March 24, 2007 @ 10:01 am
I have heard that you must keep the receipts or at least since mosthealth food stores have your name in their system under your accountyou can get a print out of what all you have purchased throughout theyear.
You can also do this with Supplements.
Santina Winkelbauer said,
Wrote on March 25, 2007 @ 12:48 am
Our local health food store doesn’t even have scanners yet, so I don’t know howthey’d have a record of what you bought. Maybe a place you order online fromwould, but I doubt even Whole Foods does. You would probably have to label areceipt that says “Grocery $2.49″ with “____ flour” etc.
Bethanie Milin said,
Wrote on March 25, 2007 @ 11:36 pm
I took a college income tax accounting course a couple years ago andthe subject of deductions for special diets came up. I asked theprofessor (whom primarily does income taxes and used to work for theIRS) what exactly can one deduct and whom can deduct. He said if oneis on a special diet required by their doctor, they can deduct thedifference between the regular food item and the specialty item (suchas Kinnikinnik bread less Wonderbread), total amount of itemspurchased unique to that diet (such as xanthan gum), the cost ofshipping & handling and the cost of gas if you have to drive furtherthan usual to a specialty store. If audited, you would have toproduce the receipts and the worksheets that show how you calculatedthe differences.
I asked him who exactly can take these deductions and what proof isnecessary. He said he would contact a few friends of his that stillwere auditors at IRS to confirm. He came back the next week and saideveryone he spoke to said if audited, you would have to produce aletter by your doctor that states the patient must be on a specialdiet for health reasons. It must detail what the diet is, that thecondition it is for is life-threatening and the diet is for life. Hespecifically asked them about the diet for celiac disease and forautism. They said celiac disease would qualify since it is considereda life-threatening condition and the diet is for life but autism doesnot fit all these requirements.
Santina Winkelbauer said,
Wrote on March 26, 2007 @ 5:13 am
Whenever/wherever you buy special foods (regular or health food store, online,etc.), save that receipt. The biggest problem with doing this, besides keepingthem organized, is that, at least around here, the ink disappears after a fewmonths. I would suggest going to the library or wherever once a month or so andcopying your receipts (several on a page). Then, highlight the special foodspurchases on the copy (not the original, as highlighter doesn’t photocopy well).Staple the original receipts to the copy and make a note on the back or bottomof the copy something like “receipts from 12/05 copied 12/31/05″ so your recordsmatch, even if they can’t read them. I doubt any of the heat-treated paperreceipts would still be readable in 6 years, which I recall is the audit limit.