IRS Issues Long-Term Care Premium Deductibility Limits for 2022, and They Look Pretty Familiar

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has announced the amounts taxpayers of different ages can deduct from their 2022 income as a result of buying long-term care insurance, and the figures are almost the same as in 2021.

Posted on November 22, 2021

Many types of medical expenses are deductible from your taxes. To claim the deduction, your total unreimbursed medical expenses (which can include premiums for “qualified” long-term care insurance policies), have to be more than 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income in 2022.

As long as the long-term care insurance policy is “qualified” (see below), these premiums -- what the policyholder pays the insurance company to keep the policy in force -- are deductible for the taxpayer, his or her spouse, and other dependents. If you are self-employed, the tax-deductibility rules are a little different: You can take the amount of the premium as a deduction as long as you made a net profit; your medical expenses do not have to exceed a certain percentage of your income. The tax deduction is generally not available with so-called hybrid policies, such as life insurance and annuity policies with a long-term care benefit.

There is a limit on how large a premium can be deducted, depending on the age of the taxpayer at the end of the year. Following are the deductibility limits for tax year 2022. They are the same as in 2021, with the exception that for those in the age 60 to 70 age range the IRS reduced the limit by $10, from $1,420 to $1,410.  Any premium amounts for the year above these limits are not considered to be a medical expense.

Another change announced by the IRS involves benefits from per diem or indemnity policies, which pay a predetermined amount each day. These benefits are not included in income except amounts that exceed the beneficiary's total qualified long-term care expenses or $390 per day, whichever is greater.

For these and other inflation adjustments from the IRS, click here.

What Is a "Qualified" Policy?
To be "qualified," policies issued on or after January 1, 1997, must adhere to certain requirements, among them that the policy must offer the consumer the options of "inflation" and "nonforfeiture" protection, although the consumer can choose not to purchase these features. Policies purchased before January 1, 1997, will be grandfathered and treated as "qualified" as long as they have been approved by the insurance commissioner of the state in which they are sold.