Read the attached article What Married Taxpayers Lose By Filing Separately by Li

Question

Read the attached article What Married Taxpayers Lose By Filing Separately by Lisa Hey. Married couples who have one sick spouse may often have to choose between tax advantages (such as the Earned Income Credit) and the ability to deduct Medical expenses (due to the 10% AGI limitation). Should chronically ill taxpayers who file separately to deduct a larger share of medical expenses be forced to forgo tax benefits such as the deduction for college tuition expenses or the Child Tax Credit?

https://www.betterment.com/resources/married-filing-separately/

Explanation / Answer

Ans

No we believe it is unfair. Parents or couples who are chronically ill should be able to deduct on account of illness in addition to deduction on account of child tax credit. This is fair. Remember at one time feudal Govts taxed agricultural produce at exorbitant rates. Nowadays most Govts do not tax agricultural produce. Still Govt tax revenues have risen. So when we have less taxes on large businesses as proposed by trumph etc to attract industrialists, when there are many exemptions which are not as much important as health and life of a person, we should allow critically ill patients these tax exemptions. But this should be only in case disease is critical and treatment needs significant expenditure.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse R
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.