Recently, I received a call from a long-time client facing a dilemma. His widowed mother had been diagnosed with dementia and needed to be admitted to a long-term care facility providing memory care that would cost over $8,000 a month. Unfortunately, she had very limited assets and income of only $2,000 a month from Social Security benefits.

Since Medicare covers no more than 100 days of skilled nursing care and no memory care services, and she was not eligible for Medicaid, it was clear that my client would be “on the hook” to pay for most of these costs. In fact, he was legally obligated to do so, since he lived in one of 24 states that require children to pay for the care of their aging parents. If he paid for his mother’s long-term care expenses, could he deduct them?