Probably the most curtailed deduction in income tax returns in recent years concerns the deduction of healthcare costs. What is still possible in the 2014 tax return in that area?
The following issues due to illness or disability you can still deduct:
- medical and surgical assistance, except:
- Laser eye surgery to replace glasses or contact lenses;
- expenses for in vitro fertilisation for a woman aged 43 or over at the time of treatment
- expenses for the first two in vitro fertilisation treatments if more than one embryo;
- transport;
- Pharmaceutical devices (provided on doctor's prescription);
- other tools, except:
- glasses, contact lenses and other vision support devices;
- mobility scooters;
- wheelchairs
- adaptations to, in or around a house, houseboat, caravan or appurtenances thereof;
- expenses for an elbow crutch, a cast support, a walker, an axillary crutch, a forearm crutch, a walker or a walking aid with three or four legs;
- additional family support;
- additional costs of diet held on medical prescription;
this deduction is made on the basis of flat-rate amounts set out in a table;
- extra clothes and bedding;
this expenditure is taken into account in the amount of €310, except if it is found that the expenditure exceeds €620, in which case an amount of €775 is taken into account;
- travel in connection with visits from:
- due to illness or disability;
- persons nursed for more than one month;
- with whom the visitor had a joint household at the start of the illness or disability;
- if the one-way distance is more than 10 kilometres and;
- capped at €0.19 per kilometre when travelling by car (not being a taxi).
An important condition for the deduction of specific healthcare costs is that the costs must be on you print. This means that the costs may not be reimbursed to you one way or the other, for example by your (health) insurer or by your employer, or if you could be recovered from a third party (e.g. in case of an accident).
Not deductible are all healthcare costs covered by the statutory basic health insurance package. Also, costs you have to pay yourself within the compulsory or voluntary excess of the health insurance may not be deducted.
The burden of proof for deducted specific healthcare costs rests emphatically on the taxpayer. It is therefore important that, regarding these expenses, you keep all bills, receipts and the like carefully for 5 years.