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CNN Live Today

IRS Says Obesity Tax Deductible

Aired April 03, 2002 - 11:27   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Health news now that should be interesting to not just your waistline, but you wallet. Turns out your diet could be tax deductible. It is a new ruling from the Internal Revenue Service. It qualifies obesity as a disease, and it allows a tax deduction for weight loss programs that are prescribed to treat obesity. Our medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, joins us with details. She is in New York this morning -- Elizabeth, good morning.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.

KAGAN: Now, what exactly are these new rules from the IRS? How do they work?

COHEN: Well, it very interesting. The IRS has now caught up with medical science, saying obesity really is a disease, and it should be deductible just like -- or that treating it should be deductible, just like treating any other medical disease. Of course, it is the IRS, so they have rules.

The fist rule is that you have to be obese to actually have deductible expenses. You can't be into vanity and just want to lose 10 pounds. To look good at the high school reunion. So, let's take a look at what clinically obese really means, and these are sort of guidelines from the National Institutes of Health. Let's say if you're five foot four, you would be considered obese if you weigh 175 pounds or more. If you are five foot ten, you would be considered obese if you weighed 210 pounds or more. Those are just two heights that we chose. It is the same for men and for women, which many people think seems very strange, but those are the rules.

And then the other rule is that your doctor has to actually recommend this treatment. You can't just say, gosh, a week at a spa sounds great, let's try to deduct that from my taxes. Doesn't work that way. A doctor has to actually recommend it -- Daryn.

KAGAN: I saw bikini boot camp advertised at the gym yesterday. We're not talking that.

COHEN: Not unless doctor recommends it, and then, you know, maybe you could try it.

KAGAN: There's that. Now, what can a person deduct in terms of actual cost? COHEN: OK. Well one thing that we know you can't deduct is you can't deduct food. They won't let you do that. The IRS has not spelled out beyond that exactly what is and is not deductible, but we decided to take a look at what would be considered some traditional weight loss treatments, and to see how much they are. For example, a year of Weight Watchers would be $630. A year of Meridia, which is a diet drug, would be $1,000 approximately, and four weeks at the Duke University weight loss program, a very prestigious weight loss program, would be $6,000. So that's a lot, and that's just sort of -- we tried to give kind of a variety there of kinds of things that people pay for. And so -- the IRS, again, hasn't spelled it out, but those are some of the traditional things that a doctor might recommend.

KAGAN: Well, I know with some other medical costs, you have to reach a certain percentage of your income. Would that apply here?

COHEN: That's the tough part of it. Yes. It has to exceed 7.5 percent of your income. So let me try to give an example. If you earn $100,000, you have to spend more than $7,500 on all your medical expenses put together. Now, your insurance, not with the part insurance pays, but you, out-of-pocket, have to spend more than $7 500, and only the part that exceeds $7,500 is deductible. So, if you spend 8,000, then only 500 would be deductible. So, that is a very high threshold. Not a lot of people meet it.

KAGAN: So we all perk up, we hear diet and deducting from our taxes, but really when you look at it, we're talking a very narrow group of people.

COHEN: It is people who are -- first of all, truly obese, second of all, have doctors who are actually recommending treatments, and third of all, who are spending a considerable amount of money on those treatments.

KAGAN: Absolutely. All right, Elizabeth Cohen in New York. Safe travels back to us here in Atlanta.

COHEN: Thank you.

KAGAN: Thank you so much.

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