It's that time again ...

Deductible medical expenses include:

• Abortion.
  (This of course makes me wonder how this flies with the people who are arguing that children shouldn't seek abortion without parental consent [or I suppose that people shouldn't seek abortion without grandparental consent] but then might choose to deduct the expense to get over the dreaded 7.5% floor.)
  
• Alcoholic or drug rehabilitative inpatient care.
  
• Braille books — difference in cost between Braille edition and printed edition.
  
• Clarinet lessons advised by dentist for treatment of tooth defects.
  
• Iron lung.
  
• Lead-based paint removal.
  
• Legal fees for guardianship of mentally ill spouse.
  
• Navajo healing ceremonies ("sings").
  
• Pregnancy testing kits.
  
• Remedial reading lessons for child with dyslexia.
  
• Smoking cessation.
  
• Unlicensed practitioner services are deductible if the type and quality of the services are not illegal. (I think this is meant to apply to, say, midwives and street medics, but possibilities abound, don't they? "I'm delivering massage services, officer, not a handjob.")
  
• Whirlpool baths.
  
• Wig advised by doctor as essential to mental health.

Non-deductible medical expenses include:

• Bottled water bought to avoid drinking fluoridated city water.
  
• Cost of divorce recommended by a psychiatrist.
  
• Cost of hotel room suggested for sex therapy.
  
• Cost of moving away from airport noise by person suffering a nervous breakdown.
  
• Cost of trips prescribed by a doctor for a "change of environment" to boost morale.
  
• Divorced spouse's medical bills.
  
• Ear piercing.
  
• Funeral, cremation, burial, cemetery plot, monument or mausoleum.
  (N.B.: Isn't that a little bit past the point of "medical expense"?)
  
• Illegal drugs, including prescribed marijuana in states where legal.
  
• Massages for stress reduction.
  
• Scientology fees.
  (Ha! Take that, Kirstie Alley!)
  
• Tattooing.
  
• Toothpaste.
  
• Travel costs to favorable climate if you can live there permanently.
  
• Travel costs to look for a new place to live.

As my friend Wes Payne once wrote, "In the military, every regulation, no matter how common-sense or obscure, is writ large in the blood of the idiot before you who fucked it up."

More interestingly, I can deduct clarinet lessons with a note from the right quack? What?