Is cosmetic surgery a medical expense?

The code does not permit deductions for "Unnecesary Cosmetic Surgery."

You generally cannot include in medical expenses the amount you pay for procedures such as face lifts, hair transplants, hair removal (electrolysis), and liposuction.

You can include in medical expenses the amount you pay for cosmetic surgery if it is necessary to improve a deformity arising from, or directly related to, a congenital abnormality, a personal injury resulting from an accident or trauma, or a disfiguring disease.

In other words, some other specific event or thing must have happened in order to make it medically necessary or [medically] desired -i.e. it is not entirely cosmetic.

It seems to me that male patern baldness is a congenital abnormality. It's just not abnormal enough, I suppose.

Stu

My favorite answer: It depends.

The general rule is NO. There are exceptions which have been mentioned in other responses.

The point I want to make is that allowed medical expenses are deductible less 7.5% of your adjested gross income. So if your AGI is $120,000, you have to have $9,000 in allowed medical espenses before it's worth discussing. And then you have to be concerned about the notorious Alternative Minimum Tax wiping out your Schedule A deductions.

If you are gainfully employed (as is the woman who supports me), you should have a Flexible Spending Account for Health Care expenses. So if a tummy tuck or a face lift is an allowable deduction for you, it's should be a better tax planning strategy to get it reimbursed from there than to risk losing the deduction to AMT.

Dick

Your medical deductions are still allowed under AMT, but with a higher

If your employer allows it...

And if you are *not* gainfully employed (or even if you are), you can have a Health Savings Account (HSA), which is almost as good, taxwise.

-Mark Bole