Health Insurance Costs for Self-Employed Persons(p25)

If you were self-employed and had a net profit for the year, you may be able to deduct, as an adjustment to income, amounts paid for medical and qualified long-term care insurance on behalf of yourself, your spouse, your dependents, and your children who were under age 27 at the end of 2012. For this purpose, you were self-employed if you were a general partner (or a limited partner receiving guaranteed payments) or you received wages from an S corporation in which you were more than a 2% shareholder. The insurance plan must be established under your trade or business and the deduction cannot be more than your earned income from that trade or business.

You cannot deduct payments for medical insurance for any month in which you were eligible to participate in a health plan subsidized by your employer, your spouse's employer or an employer of your dependent or your child under age 27 at the end of 2012. You cannot deduct payments for a qualified long-term care insurance contract for any month in which you were eligible to participate in a long-term care insurance plan subsidized by your employer or your spouse's employer.

If you qualify to take the deduction, use the Self-Employed Health Insurance Deduction Worksheet in the Form 1040 instructions to figure the amount you can deduct. But if any of the following applies, do not use that worksheet.

• You had more than one source of income subject to self-employment tax.
• You file Form 2555, Foreign Earned Income, or Form 2555-EZ, Foreign Earned Income Exclusion.
• You are using amounts paid for qualified long-term care insurance to figure the deduction.

If you cannot use the worksheet in the Form 1040 instructions, use the worksheet in Publication 535, Business Expenses, to figure your deduction.

If, during 2012, you were an eligible trade adjustment assistance (TAA) recipient, alternative TAA (ATAA) recipient, reemployment TAA (RTAA) recipient, or Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation pension recipient, see the instructions for Form 8885 to figure the amount to enter on line 1 of the worksheet.

When figuring the amount you can deduct for insurance premiums, do not include amounts paid for health insurance coverage with retirement plan distributions that were tax-free because you are a retired public safety officer.

You take this deduction on Form 1040, line 29. If you itemize your deductions and do not claim 100% of your self-employed health insurance costs on line 29, include any remaining premiums with all other medical expenses on Schedule A (Form 1040), subject to the 7.5% limit.

If the insurance policy covers your nondependent child who was under age 27 at the end of 2012, you can claim the premiums for that coverage on Form 1040, line 29. If you cannot claim 100% of your self-employed health insurance costs on line 29, any excess amounts attributable to that child are not eligible to be claimed on Schedule A (Form 1040).

Generally, family health insurance premiums do not increase if coverage for an additional child is added. If this is the situation, no allocation would be necessary. If the premiums did increase (such as where coverage was expanded from single to family to add the non-dependent child), you can allocate the amount on line 29 to the non-dependent child and any excess amounts not attributable to that child would be eligible to be claimed on Schedule A.

Naomi is self-employed in 2012 and has self-only coverage for health insurance. Her premium for that coverage was $5,000 for the year. She changes to family coverage only to add her 26-year-old nondependent child to the plan. Her health insurance premium increases to $10,000 for the year. After completing the Self-Employed Health Insurance Deduction Worksheet for Form 1040, line 29, she can only deduct $4,000 on line 29. The $4,000 is allocable to the nondependent child. On Schedule A, she can only claim the $5,000 allocable to her coverage. She cannot claim the $1,000 excess premiums allocable to the nondependent child.

The facts are the same as in Example 1, except that Naomi had family coverage when she added her 26-year-old nondependent child to the policy. There was no increase in the $10,000 premium. In this case, she could claim $4,000 on line 29 and $6,000 on Schedule A.

For more information, see Publication 535.