Health/Medical expenses Jointly assessed?

[sully]

If you are jointly assessed as a married couple do you have to Be jointly assessed for medical expenses as well. Ie if one person spent more the 200 on medical bills and the other under 50.

can the person spending 200 claim back the amount over 125 or is it that there is nothing to claim back as when we are jointly assessed its under 250 euro...

 

[ClubMan]

The €125/€250 "excesses" on MED1/2 claims were abolished from 2007. You now get relief on all otherwise unreimbursed qualifying expenses.

 

[sully]

Ok but i presume that doesn't apply to previous years... trying to look into claiming back any tax that may be due to us for the last 4 years. we got married then, but never got round to getting jointly assessed.

Thats great to know that those excesses were abolished. iwasn't aware of that. thanks for that clubman.

 

[homer911]

If you are jointly assessed as a married couple do you have to Be jointly assessed for medical expenses as well. Ie if one person spent more the 200 on medical bills and the other under 50.

can the person spending 200 claim back the amount over 125 or is it that there is nothing to claim back as when we are jointly assessed its under 250 euro...

The way the Med1 is phrased, I've always been under the impression that you can pick/choose - if its in your favour to go with a single person claim, then go with that - its up to the Revenue Commissioners to say otherwise, in which case you can submit the additional expenditure.

 

[Graham_07]

For the last 4 yrs to 2006 , its €125 individual or €250 excess if more than one person in claim. If the other party has <€125 in exps then better to leave her out. If say you have €500 and your wife has €100 then better to leave her out as calc will be €600-250=350 as against €500-125=375.

 

[sully]

Thanks Graham for clearing that up for me.

i will do that then.

 

[hoopman]

In relation to medical tax relief, I got the following unsolicited letter from the tax office a few days ago.

Dear Customer
I am enclosing a statement form 21, which shows you are entitled to a tax refund for the year 2006 for money spent by you on prescribed drugs. You don't need to take any action or contact revenue at this stage- this refund will issue, from revenue, to you in the next few days.
The refund arises from details provided to revenue by the health service executive. This information only related to the actual amount spent by you on perscribed drugs and was given to revenue in accordance with the finance act 2007. This information has only been used to calculate the tax refund due to you and will not be used for any other purpose.

End Of Letter

Up to this year I never kept receipts of Gp and perscriptions. But have for this year and intend to make a claim for 2007.

I never made a claim for 2006 and can only persume they able to get this info because my family and I have the drug cards where for each month there is a maximum amount we only have to pay for perscriptions.

I was thinking of ringing the tax office and asking them to check the previous 3 years drug perscriptions for me, seems as they were able to do this for 2006 without me asking.

As I never kept Gp receipts for these years, does anyone think I have a chance of getting a rebate on that section if I give them an estimate of what I probally paid, or am I chancing my arm

My rather large Cheque for €52.48cent arrived today.

 

[ClubMan]

Up to this year I never kept receipts of Gp and perscriptions.

If you can get some proof of payment you could claim for up to 4 previous tax years. Note that you don't have to submit receipts/proof of payment with a MED1/2 claim but you need to keep them in case Revenue ever query the claim or audit you.

I never made a claim for 2006 and can only persume they able to get this info because my family and I have the drug cards where for each month there is a maximum amount we only have to pay for perscriptions.

As far as I know they have been moving towards collecting information and/or granting relief at source and automatically in a number of situations such as this (e.g. automatically exempting over 65's (?) who qualify from DIRT etc.) . There was a notice about it on their website about a year ago (post Budget 2007 I think) but I can't find it now.

I was thinking of ringing the tax office and asking them to check the previous 3 years drug perscriptions for me, seems as they were able to do this for 2006 without me asking.

No harm in trying.

As I never kept Gp receipts for these years, does anyone think I have a chance of getting a rebate on that section if I give them an estimate of what I probally paid, or am I chancing my arm

You really need some proof of payment just in case. Your GP, pharmacist etc. may have records allowing them to issue duplicate receipts?

My rather large Cheque for €52.48cent arrived today.

Better than nothing?

 

[hoopman]

You really need some proof of payment just in case. Your GP, pharmacist etc. may have records allowing them to issue duplicate receipts?
Better than nothing?

Cheers Clubman Unfortunatly My GP has a rather large sign in his reception.
Stating the will not issue end of year statements of monies paid and advise customers to keep their receipts.
But i think I'll give the revenue a ring tomorro and try on the perscribed drugs part for these back years.

And yea your right €52.48 is better then nothing, this time of the year i could get a large amount of selection boxes for it.