You can claim a deduction for medical and dental expenses you incurred, but as a word of caution, you should expect a deduction, only if you incurred major unreimbursed medical expenses during the year. This is so, because you can deduct medical expenses only to the extent that they exceed 10% of your adjusted gross income (AGI).

For example, your AGI is $50,000 and your medical expenses total $6,000. Since 10% of $50,000 is $5,000, you can only take a deduction of $1,000 ($6,000-$5,000). The criteria for applying this restriction, from the government’s perspective, is to prevent taxpayers with large salaries from claiming expenses they can certainly afford, while benefiting lower income taxpayers who are burdened by unforeseen medical costs.

Prior to 2013, you could deduct expenses that exceeded 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. Note, however, that for taxpayers 65 and older, the 7.5 percent threshold will remain in force up to tax year 2016.

You can include medical expenses for yourself and your spouse, your dependents claimed on your return, and others you could have claimed as a dependent, except that they didn’t meet the gross income test, or they filed a joint return.

Not all medical expenses that you incur are deductible. Medical and dental expenses are eligible only if they were paid for the prevention or relief of a physical defect, mental defect, or illness. You can claim expenses paid for treatment, diagnosis, cure, or the prevention of disease. The IRS has quite a comprehensive list of deductible and non-deductible medical expenses.

The primary objective of this article is to empower taxpayers to learn to do their own taxes. For detailed information on your deductible and nondeductible medical expenses, grab yourself a copy of “Doing Your Own Taxes is as Easy as 1, 2, 3,” ($6.98) on TaxConnections.com.