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Find out if your healthcare is deductible in QuickBooks Solopreneur and QuickBooks Self-Employed

by Intuit2 Updated 2 months ago

When you're self-employed, tracking healthcare insurance can be tricky. The good news is if you have health insurance, some of the costs may be deductible on your annual taxes.

In QuickBooks Solopreneur and QuickBooks Self-Employed, we help you determine if you can write off your health care expenses as a deduction. Specifically, we:

  • Calculate how healthcare deductions affect (or lower) your quarterly tax estimates
  • Provide healthcare totals to use when completing your annual tax return

Yes, the Affordable Care Act requires it. Even health individuals need health insurance to guards against unexpected, high medical costs. Without health insurance, you also risk paying a big penalty for yourself and any uninsured tax dependents in your household. The penalties are significant and go up every year.

Step 1: Fill out your Healthcare profile

See if you qualify for deductions.You may be eligible to deduct some, all, or one of these expenses depending on your situation. There are types of healthcare deductions that can affect your quarterly tax estimates:

  • Health Insurance Premiums, including dental and vision premiums
  • Health Savings Account (HSA) contributions

To see if you qualify, fill out your Healthcare profile:

  1. Sign in to QuickBooks Solopreneur or QuickBooks Self-Employed.
  2. Select the Settings Settings gear icon. icon.
  3. Select Healthcare.
  4. Select the Healthcare premiums tab.
  5. Enter your info and answer the questions about your health insurance situation.
  6. Select the Health Savings Account tab.
  7. Answer the questions about your health insurance situation.
  8. When you're done, select Save.

As you fill out the form, we'll let you know which deductions you qualify for. We'll also give you specific steps to make sure you get them.

Want more info? Here are tips from the IRS about health insurance deductions if you're self-employed.

Step 2: Categorize healthcare expenses

in QuickBooks Solopreneur

  1. Go to Transactions.
  2. Find the healthcare expense, or select New transaction and enter it manually.
  3. Choose Spending, then select Business transaction for the type.
  4. Fill out the Date, Description, and Notes fields.
  5. In Category, select Health insurance premium.
  6. Select Save.

in QuickBooks Self-Employed

When you enter healthcare expenses or download them from your online bank accounts, you need to categorize them.

  1. Go to the Transactions menu.
  2. Find the healthcare expense, or select Add transaction and enter it manually.
  3. Select Business for the type.
  4. Select the link in the Category column.
  5. Select Insurance and then Health insurance premium or Health Savings Account contribution for the type.
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