Taxes

Why is it that people with kids have all sorts of tax breaks – what about us infertiles?

I am seriously spending more money on infertility treatments than most people spend on their kids and when we hit IVF-land It will be like paying our future embryo’s way through college – without them being any smarter for it or even a guarantee that they will even exist.

I am dumping money lots of money into the local economy.  I am supporting the jobs of multiple doctors, nurses, andrologists, office people.  The government should thank me for my generous hemorrhage of more money than I have ever spent on anything other than my house.

I just did my taxes and finally fell into the tax bracket entitled "totally screwed" which is really good because it is the first full year of a real income in my life (so I can finally afford this stuff), but bad because we got hit hard.   The problem is that we hit a little level called the alternative minimum tax.  I calculated it out earlier this year that if we had to do 2 cycles of IVF and we could fit them in before the end of 2011 that we would hit the minimum amount of medical expenses needed to deduct it on our taxes.  When you are taxed at 42% rate between state and federal, this return on IVF expenses is thousands and thousands of dollars.

Enter something I didn't consider (since I am not an accountant and doctors are terrible with money) the Alternative Minimum Tax.   I thought this was only for rich people, but not only did it keep us from deducting thousands of dollars we both spent on medical licensing and board certification, stopped the ability to deduct interest on our six-figure student loans but it also increases the minimum for medical deductions by more than we will be able to afford for IVF. 

I thought I was being smart about all this, but obviously there was an epic fail in my analysis, so don't take anything I have said on this blog too seriously.

Oh well, nice to know I am getting screwed by taxes so I probably did them right.  And for me getting screwed has never amounted to any bundles of joy so at least there is no change.