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Just wondering how you go about getting your expenses listed for tax time? I have had big dental expenses this financial year so will exceed the safety net. I have the dental receipts but have not kept all my doctor's receipts which total ~ $1200 for the year.
Will medicare issue me with a yearly statement of funds received/paid out??
TIA
oh wow I didnt know you could claim dental back! That has made my morning :) I was in medicare recently and just filled out a form to request my for Medicare Benefit tax statement for this years and last. My 2010 one outlines the total charges, the total benefits and the total out of pocket.
HTH
It is not claimable from Medicare but I believe once your expenses (dental and medical) exceed 2K then you get a tax refund of 20c per $1 over this amount.
We are just trying to work this out too as we have had huge medical expenses for the year. I think you may have to go to the individual providor (ie doctor etc) to get the total for the financial year.
you go into medicare after July 1 and aks for a tax statement of benfits which will list all your out of pocket medicare claimed bills....do the same with your health fund if you one or simply add up our dental receipts and add the two figures together hun...don't forget presciption receipts and all that jazz too.
Thanks!
As melbel said, you contact Medicare after June 30 and request your tax statement. Alternatively, if you are signed up for online services, you can print it out yourself.
And it is once your medical expenses exceed $1500 :) When I had my braces done it made a big difference to my tax, but having DS with a private obstetrician made barely any difference...
If you do your tax on etax, all that info gets automatically downloaded into your tax return as well :)
Hiya
Quick question about script receipts. Basically I haven't kept them. Is there any way to get a record of medicines purchased??
If they are scripts, don't they usually ask for your medicare card ... they might be on your medicare statement? I really don't know but I thought they might be.
For scripts you go to the chemist you got the scripts filled out at and ask for a tax statement. Hopefully you have a regular chemist, otherwise you will need to go to each chemist. They usually ask you to fill a stat dec out to get the statement.
For Medicare you can get the statement online if you are registered online and and also get one from your PHI as well. Ask for end of financial year itemised statement for tax.
You get 20c in the dollar for medical expenses after you hit $1500 threshold.
For anything that you didn't claim from either PHI or Medicare, bundle the receipts and add them up or give them to your Tax agent.
Thanks for posting this thread - DH will have more than reached that threshold this year and I was wondering if there was a statement you needed and how to get it.
Just a few questions (sorry to thread crash Mak) -
I am a SAHM and so I don't have an income of my own. Can DH claim my medical expenses on his tax return? I know that when we download it from etax, we can only download the info for ourselves and not for anybody else listed on our statement over the age of 18 - so DH can't download my details and I can't download his. Does that mean he can't claim my medical expenses on his tax return?
I didn't think I had any that I could claim but I had a baby this year and GD so I had quite a few scripts to fill and medical expenses. Also, does the medicare statement operate on the Financial year or the calendar year? For some reason, I always thought it was the calendar year ...
They now run it financial year..due to being able to make claims through tax. Safety Next is calendar year I think?
I am pretty certain you can put your medical expenses against his?
The medical expenses must be for:
you
your spouse, regardless of their income (see the definition of spouse in Special circumstances and glossary)
your children who were under 21 years old (including your adopted children, stepchildren, ex-nuptial children or children of your spouse) regardless of their income
any other child under 21 years old who was not a student, whom you maintained, and whose adjusted taxable income (ATI) for the period you maintained them was less than
the total of $282 + $28.92 for each week you maintained them for the first child under 21 years old, or
the total of $282 + $21.70 for each week you maintained them for any other child under 21 years old who is not a student.
this is direct from the ATO website.
Ahh, I was getting confused by the safety net with regards to the statement period.
I think I might go and see what receipts I can dig up
Thanks :)
With prescriptions , once you hit $300 a year , you get it free through PBS..... the chemist would tell you when you hit the amount and then you just dont pay... dont know if that helps anyone :)
with prescriptions, as someone said the chemist will have a record....we have two regular chemists we use so we just go and get a print out from them and add it to the total, plus other medicals I get for my diabetes that don't come under any of the above we keep the receipts for (needles and stuff like that). Once we reach $1500 as family we get a rebate for the rest...usually our acountant puts it on the return that will most benefit from the rebate which is usually hubby's...usually we are OOP about $8,000 on medicals per year so the tax rebate is a big help for us!
I think you can register to get it online on their site too.
Yep tested this today. The lady at Medicare said she could order it for me & it would be posted out several weeks into July. Or I could register for online services and view it myself. Caveat- if you are partnered you can only access your own records & your partner will need to register for theirs.
also even if your partner is on your card you can't pick up their statement from the medicare office if you go in for them...they have to do it themselves...got caught out with that one too......you can get your children's though, just not your husbands!
Yep, as everyone said, anything that you have claimed from a doctor through medicare, medicare keeps a record of. You can access it online (super easy to sign up for), but you can't access your spouses details (so I signed DH up so I can check his also when doing our tax).
I asked previously our accountant, and it is fine for him to claim my medical expenses, as I have no income, and he is technically supporting me.
Also, with medicines the threshold to get the $5.40 script is actually once you have exceeded 24 scripts.. Which is annoying, i get to around 20 and we pay at least $2k OOP for medicines for me each year
You would be suprised by what you claim. It is pretty much anything at the direction of a doctor, so physio, medicines, over the counter pharmacy only medication at the direction of a doctor to treat a specific condition (so my daughter was anaemic, so I could claim her iron supplements, it has to be something that you can't buy in a supermarket and it can't be pain relief related), dental, dietician, ot, speech therapy, psychology, etc. There is a lot that you can claim, sleep apnoea machines etc. We put in for a private tax ruling last year (very easy, there is directions online how to do it, and they give examples of the rulings that have won etc so you can base your claim on that) in relation to OT aides, which was granted.
You can claim back 20% above $1500 OOP (which i think is stupid, once you have expenses that high, you should qualify and get the 20% off the $1500 also). For example, last year our OOP was almost $4000. We can only claim 20% of $2500 which is $500. That's not a lot back when you have so many medical expenses.
i am registered on the medicare site and yes, you can check (and download) from there:
The threshold for this finaciql year has increased to $2000. So any expenses over $2000 you get back .20c in the dollar.
Excellent help everyone thanks! Dh mentioned the threshold change too - I got braces about 3 months ago so good timing for us as I believe it will be means tested from next year also. xx