Self-employed health insurance -- another angle

[appelman]

Facts: Clients are a California married couple. Husband is self-employed; wife is salaried, but has no employer-provided health care coverage. Only insurance is an HDHP established in the wife's name to qualify for a family HSA. HSA is funded by pre-tax payroll deductions from wife's salary, though there is no designation on her W-2.

Question: can the insurance premiums be deducted on line 29 as self-employed health insurance? (This seems akin to the question of whether self-employed taxpayers can deduct their spouses' Medicare B premiums as self-employed health insurance.)

All opinions will be greatly appreciated.

[FEDUKE404]

Cannot count wife's policy

Unless I'm missing something, this should be an easy one:

The only medical insurance that would qualify for the SEHI is a policy both owned and paid for by the husband, i.e. the person with the Schedule C. (This conclusion is consistent with the very long-standing rules for qualifying insurance for SEHI purposes.) The husband's policy can cover the wife, and be allowable for SEHI, but the spouse's policy that covers the husband would not meet the criteria.

As for the newer issue re spousal Medicare B premiums somehow being a qualifying expense (see great confusion in previous threads), I feel that once the IRS gets around to finalizing the 2012 Publication 535 any spousal Medicare B/D premiums will not be allowable for a SEHI adjustment.

In the meantime, the IRS/Kiplinger folks can continue to fight it out:

http://forum.thetaxbook.com/showthread.php?20506-Medicare-Premiums-Deductible-as-SEHI

I will just maintain a "no opinion" stance on Medicare.....

FE