Sickness and Injury Benefits(p14)

Generally, you must report as income any amount you receive for personal injury or sickness through an accident or health plan that is paid for by your employer. If both you and your employer pay for the plan, only the amount you receive that is due to your employer's payments is reported as income. However, certain payments may not be taxable to you. Some of these payments are discussed later in this section. Also, see Military and Government Disability Pensions and Other Sickness and Injury Benefits in Publication 525.

If you pay the entire cost of an accident or health plan, do not include any amounts you receive from the plan for personal injury or sickness as income on your tax return. If your plan reimbursed you for medical expenses you deducted in an earlier year, you may have to include some, or all, of the reimbursement in your income.

If you retired on disability, you must include in income any disability pension you receive under a plan that is paid for by your employer. You must report your taxable disability payments as wages on line 7 of Form 1040 or Form 1040A or on line 8 of Form 1040NR until you reach minimum retirement age. Minimum retirement age generally is the age at which you can first receive a pension or annuity if you are not disabled.

Beginning on the day after you reach minimum retirement age, payments you receive are taxable as a pension or annuity. Report the payments on lines 16a and 16b of Form 1040, on lines 12a and 12b of Form 1040A, or on lines 17a and 17b of Form 1040NR. For more information on pensions and annuities, see Publication 575.

If you receive payments from a retirement or profit-sharing plan that does not provide for disability retirement, do not treat the payments as a disability pension. The payments must be reported as a pension or annuity.

If you retire on disability, any lump-sum payment you receive for accrued annual leave is a salary payment. The payment is not a disability payment. Include it in your income in the tax year you receive it.

Long-term care insurance contracts generally are treated as accident and health insurance contracts. Amounts you receive from them (other than policyholder dividends or premium refunds) generally are excludable from income as amounts received for personal injury or sickness. However, the amount you can exclude may be limited. Long-term care insurance contracts are discussed in more detail in Publication 525.

Amounts you receive as workers' compensation for an occupational sickness or injury are fully exempt from tax if they are paid under a workers' compensation act or a statute in the nature of a workers' compensation act. The exemption also applies to your survivors. The exemption, however, does not apply to retirement plan benefits you receive based on your age, length of service, or prior contributions to the plan, even if you retired because of an occupational sickness or injury.

If you return to work after qualifying for workers' compensation, salary payments you receive for performing light duties are taxable as wages.

In addition to disability pensions and annuities, you may receive other payments for sickness or injury.

Payments received under this Act for personal injury or sickness, including payments to beneficiaries in case of death, are not taxable. However, you are taxed on amounts you receive under this Act as continuation of pay for up to 45 days while a claim is being decided. Report this income on Form 1040, line 7; Form 1040A, line 7; on Form 1040EZ, line 1; or Form 1040NR, line 8. Also, pay for sick leave while a claim is being processed is taxable and must be included in your income as wages.

Many other amounts you receive as compensation for sickness or injury are not taxable. These include the following amounts.

• Benefits you receive under an accident or health insurance policy on which either you paid the premiums or your employer paid the premiums but you had to include them in your income.
• Disability benefits you receive for loss of income or earning capacity as a result of injuries under a no-fault car insurance policy.
• Compensation you receive for permanent loss or loss of use of a part or function of your body, for your permanent disfigurement, or for such loss or disfigurement suffered by your spouse or dependent(s). This compensation must be based only on the injury and not on the period of your absence from work. These benefits are not taxable even if your employer pays for the accident and health plan that provides these benefits.