William Byrnes' Tax, Wealth, and Risk Intelligence

By Sean C. Barber

Section 213 of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Code provides for the deduction of medical expenses not otherwise covered by insurance for medical care of the taxpayer, his spouse, or a dependent.  Under Section 213 medical care is defined as “amounts paid for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease.”  Prescribed drug means “a drug or biological requiring a prescription of a physician.”

Regulation Section 1.213-1(e)(2) defines medicine or drug “as items legally procured and generally accepted as falling within a category of medicine or drugs.”   At first glance based on the Code it would appear that so long as the taxpayer met the requirements of Section 213, in states where medical marijuana is authorized, expenses incurred for its purchase would be deductible.

Read attorney Sean Barber’s analysis of this issue in his article published on > AdvisorFYI <