17.6 Expenses of Your Spouse

Subject to the AGI floor (17.1), you may deduct as medical expenses your payments of medical bills for your spouse if you were married either when your spouse received the medical services or at the time you paid the expenses. That is, you may deduct your payment of your spouse’s medical bills even though you are divorced or widowed, if, at the time the expenses were incurred, you were married. Furthermore, if your spouse incurred medical expenses before you married and you pay the bills after you marry, you may deduct the expense.

Filing Tip

Should Spouses File Separately?

If you are married and both you and your spouse have separate incomes, and one of you has substantial medical expenses for 2012, consider filing separate returns. This way the 7.5% floor will apply separately to your individual incomes, not to the higher joint income. To make sure which option to take—filing jointly or separately—you compute your tax on both types of returns and choose the one giving the lower overall tax (1.3).

On a separate return, only include the expenses you paid. If you paid medical expenses out of a joint checking account in which you and your spouse have an equal interest, then each of you are considered to have paid half of the medical expenses unless you show otherwise.

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Filing separately in community property states.

If you and your spouse file separately and live in a community property state, any medical expenses paid out of community funds are treated as paid 50% by each of you. Medical expenses paid out of separate funds of one spouse can be deducted only by that spouse.