Verdict tax office does not reward own payment of medical expenses

FG Stuttgart: Private insured refund is fully credited
Privately insured persons who pay for medical expenses themselves with the aim of contributing to the reimbursement have tax disadvantages. The tax office can reduce the tax-reducing special expenses according to the reimbursement of contributions, without taking into account the self-paid costs, as the Finance Court (FG) Baden-Württemberg in Stuttgart in a recent judgment of January 25, 2016 decided (Az .: 6 K 864 / 15). The dispute is already pending at the Federal Finance Court (BFH) in Munich.

Many private health insurance companies grant their insured a premium refund if they do not claim any lines in a calendar year. For tax reasons, this is not always rewarding, as the Stuttgart case shows.

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In 2012, the plaintiff himself paid medical expenses amounting to 564 euros. In the following year, he received a reimbursement of 741 euros from his private health insurance.

For the tax year 2013, the tax office deducted the reimbursement from the tax-reducing health insurance contributions. Without success, the plaintiff claimed that, in return, his own medical expenses had to be taken into account because that was the reason for the reimbursement.

The FG Stuttgart was in the dispute now the tax office right. The offsetting desired by the plaintiff presupposes that health expenditure, as well as health insurance contributions, can be taken into account for tax purposes as special expenditure. That is not the case. They could only be taken into account in the exceptional load.

Exceptional burdens, however, only have a tax-reducing effect if a "reasonable load" is exceeded. This depends on the income and the number of children and is between one and seven percent of the income. According to the Stuttgart judgment, the self-borne medical expenses therefore only have a tax-reducing effect if this threshold is exceeded by other extraordinary burdens.

The plaintiff lodged an appeal against this with the Federal Finance Court (BFH) in Munich (there: X R 3/16). mwo