Long Term Care

[KWF]

A taxpayer, suffering from advanced alzheimers desease and ceritifed by a doctor as being chronically ill, resides in a nursing home for her own maintenance and protection.
Are the meals provided by the nursing home included in the long term care expense and therefore deductible as medical costs?

[Dusty2004]

No

Per Pub 502 you CAN deduct the cost of meals if the principal reason for being there is to get Medical Care.

Now - where I question this situation - is it mainly for medical care or are they there because they cannot care for themselves. Seems to me they are they because they cannot care for themselves making this as I stated originally. Not deductible and you have to get the costs broken out.

Dusty

[JG EA]

Nursing home expense includes the cost of meals. See Pub 502

[New York Enrolled Agent]

A snip from income tax regulation §1.213-1

(a) Where an individual is in an institution because his condition is such that the availability of medical care (as defined in subdivisions (i) and (ii) of this subparagraph) in such institution is a principal reason for his presence there, and meals and lodging are furnished as a necessary incident to such care, the entire cost of medical care and meals and lodging at the institution, which are furnished while the individual requires continual medical care, shall constitute an expense for medical care. For example, medical care includes the entire cost of institutional care for a person who is mentally ill and unsafe when left alone.