Summary:
IRS now allows a tax deduction of weight-loss programs as a medical expense under itemized deductions.

Formally, deducting weight loss programs had a fat chance to get Internal Revenue Service approval. You could deduct them only in connection with another disease.

Now some one in five obese Americans gets a deduction for a weight loss program if it's for the treatment of physician-diagnosed obesity. This places obesity on a list of conditions accepted as diseases such as alcoholism, drug addiction and excessive smoking.

The IRS ruling gives an example:

A physician diagnoses Mary Beth as obese; therefore, she participates in a weight-loss program. Participants develop a diet plan, receive diet menus and discuss problems of dieting. She pays fees to attend and buys reduced-calorie diet food. Results: She can deduct the fees, but not the reduced-calorie food because it substitutes for food normally consumed.

The deduction is available on amended returns, generally going back three years. The ruling falls short in that it focuses on diet and instructional programs, but doesn't discuss exercise or health clubs, which are also important in obesity treatment.

For medical expenses, you deduct only if you are not reimbursed by insurance or otherwise, only if you itemize on your return and only the amount more than 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income.

To help you hurdle that 7.5 percent, here are a few of the other generally deductible medical items:

• Insurance premiums for medical, dental and prescriptions.
  
• Long term care insurance up to the IRS-set maximum for your age
  Supplemental Medicare B and sometimes Medicare A.
  
• In general, any cost to treat a medical condition.
  
• The cost of transportation to medical care.
  
• Capital improvements to your home to accommodate a disability are usually deductible. But if it increases your property value, it's deductible only to the extent the cost is more than the increase.
  
• Eyeglasses, contact lenses, eye exams, hearing aids.
  
• Drugs if medically prescribed and insulin, but not over-the-counter drugs.
  
• Home care, if generally performed by a nurse.
  
• Surgery that is legal and not purely cosmetic.
  
  

More at Deductions, Other

THE MORAL: Slimming now is less taxing.