New to site...need some advice

[NJ Gene]

Originally Posted by annapurna

The extract below comes from the IRS online discussion and is the reason why I'm not sure an unskilled companion's travel expenses count. I'm not a tax expert so take my comments as a suggestion to investigate further, not something to trust outright

Transportation

Include in medical expenses amounts paid for transportation primarily for, and essential to, medical care. You can include:

• Bus, taxi, train, or plane fares, or ambulance service,
• Transportation expenses of a parent who must go with a child who needs medical care,
• Transportation expenses of a nurse or other person who can give injections, medications, or other treatment required by a patient who is traveling to get medical care and is unable to travel alone, and
• Transportation expenses for regular visits to see a mentally ill dependent, if these visits are recommended as a part of treatment.

I am a C.P.A. and have seen this as well. If you are travelling overseas for surgery, you save the medical expenses of a nurse if you take a family member (much less money to deduct) However, a family member can help with many basic daily living functions that a health aide would. Yes, it's technically a gray area, but I would advise any client of mine going through this to take a travel deduction for one family member in addition to him/herself. This expense is a drop in the bucket compared to the entire cost of getting surgery overseas. The IRS has other things to be concerned about. If they tried to disallow it, I would fight it all the way up to tax court.

[drewrad]

I took my pastor who is also a chaplain without whose help it would have been highly unlikely I would have gone through with the surgery. He helped me physically, spiritually and mentally through the trauma.

I was lying to myself about not needing surgery even as he saw I couldn't sit without pushing up on my elbows and leaning forward, and even then, feeling my back lock up in pain. And yet I was still saying I didn't need it right up to the very end. I was a wuss and he was there for me in my darkest times.