You’ve come to the correct place if you’re an American taxpayer curious about how owning a service animal can affect your taxes. Let’s review the IRS criteria and assist you in determining whether you could receive a tax benefit for your pet.
Do service dogs qualify for a tax deduction?
Guide dogs and other service animals are very helpful to those with certain types of disability. These animals are essential for guiding their owners or serving as a source of emotional support for persons experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or for warning their owners of impending health problems.
If you depend on a service dog or another animal to help you get by on a daily basis, you may be qualified for a tax deduction even though your furry friend may not be considered a dependent. Let’s examine some details.
What is a service animal according to the ADA and IRS?
Dogs that are “individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability” are considered service animals under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This can involve duties like:
- Guiding people who are blind
- Alerting individuals who are deaf
- Pulling a wheelchair
- Alerting and protecting a person during a seizure
- Calming an individual with PTSD during an anxiety attack or panic attack
Pets are usually not allowed in places where service animals are allowed. Instead, they are classified as working animals. The IRS states that you may deduct certain pet-related expenses from your taxes if you have a service animal that you use “primarily for medical care to alleviate a mental defect or illness” and you can prove that your animal companion meets the requirements to be treated for your medical condition.
Can emotional support animals qualify for a tax write-off?
ESAs (emotional support animals) that serve only as comfort animals are typically regarded as pets rather than service animals, thus you are not able to deduct costs for them.
To assist you in managing your condition, a service animal needs to be professionally taught to carry out a particular job or task. Your pet probably doesn’t meet the criteria for a service animal if its presence alone helps you feel less anxious.
How do you prove your pet is actually a service animal for a tax deduction?
You can find out if your pet is eligible for assistance as a service animal by consulting the IRS’s special guidelines for pet owners. If necessary, a registered health practitioner should be able to give you with written proof of your need for a service animal.
Generally speaking, the IRS looks for the following:
- Your medical condition has been diagnosed. Your animal companion is probably eligible for service animal status if your doctor diagnosed you with a medical condition and suggested using it for treatment or mitigation. This may be the case with an animal that warns you that a seizure is about to occur or a guiding dog that helps you see. Make sure to receive your doctor’s approval in writing and always double check everything because the IRS loves paperwork.
- Connections between the sickness and your treatment. If there is a documented history of people with your ailment receiving comparable therapies from pets, it will strengthen your case. The IRS is more likely to hear your request if you can provide a published study endorsing squirrels as a portable blood sugar alarm. It’s a good idea to find any links between the need to have a service animal and your underlying medical condition, and to have them available to support your claim.
- Efficacy of the medical intervention. Have you experienced any relief or improvement from the illness you’ve been managing since obtaining a service animal? Any documentation attesting to this advancement will support your argument. Let’s take an example where you have a notebook where you track your improvement in physical therapy and how the animal has been a crucial help throughout your path to increased mobility. That can be used to demonstrate how well a treatment is working.
- Closeness in time to a disease’s beginning or recurrence. You could be thinking, “My cat helps me with my anxiety, so of course she counts as a service animal,”. The fact is that treatment is usually given in reaction to an issue. If you became ill or were hurt and subsequently got a service animal to help you deal, the IRS is more likely to classify your pet as a service animal. This is simpler to demonstrate and links the condition to the therapy.
What pet expenses are tax-deductible?
Congratulations if the IRS determines that your pet meets the requirements for a service animal! Numerous pet-related expenses are deductible, such as:
- Food
- Grooming
- Training
- The cost of buying the animal
- Vet bills and medical care
- Boarding
- Supplies like leashes, vests, or harnesses
- Other miscellaneous costs
How do I write off my service animal expenses when filing?
You must itemize your deductions, which involves declining the standard deduction, in order to write off expenses related to a service pet. Therefore, it only makes sense to deduct your service animal expenses if your total itemized deductions exceed the standard deduction. The standard deduction for single taxpayers in 2023 is $13,850 ($27,700 for married couples filing jointly).
Remember to look over your entire medical bill. You might have to write off medical costs other than the cost of your service animal if you have a diagnosed illness that justifies one. Medical costs must exceed 7.5% of your adjusted gross income (AGI) in order to be deductible from taxes. Your gross income without any adjustments, such as IRA contributions or interest paid on student loans, is your adjusted gross income, or AGI. There is no situation in which your AGI exceeds your gross income.
Service animals are listed on Schedule A of Form 1040 since they are considered medical expenses.
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