Publication 334 |
2001 Tax Year |
Insurance
You can generally deduct premiums you pay for the following kinds
of insurance related to your business.
- Fire, theft, flood, or similar insurance.
- Credit insurance on losses from unpaid debts.
- Group hospitalization and medical insurance for employees,
including long-term care insurance.
- Liability insurance.
- Malpractice insurance that covers your personal liability
for professional negligence resulting in injury or damage to patients
or clients.
- Workers' compensation insurance set by state law that covers
any claims for bodily injuries or job-related diseases suffered by
employees in your business, regardless of fault.
- Contributions to a state unemployment insurance fund.
Contributions are deductible as taxes if they are considered taxes
under state law.
- Overhead insurance that pays you for business overhead
expenses you have during long periods of disability caused by your
injury or sickness.
- Car and other vehicle insurance that covers vehicles used in
your business for liability, damages, and other losses. If you operate
a vehicle partly for personal use, you can deduct only the part of
your insurance premiums that applies to the business use of the
vehicle. If you use the standard mileage rate to figure your car
expenses, you cannot deduct any car insurance premiums.
- Life insurance covering your employees if you are not
directly or indirectly the beneficiary under the contract.
- Business interruption insurance that pays you for lost
profits if your business is shut down due to a fire or other cause.
Nondeductible premiums.
You cannot deduct premiums on the following kinds of insurance.
- Self-insurance reserve funds. You cannot deduct amounts
credited to a reserve you set up for self-insurance. This applies even
if you cannot get business insurance coverage for certain business
risks. However, your actual losses may be deductible. See Publication 547,
Casualties, Disasters, and Thefts.
- Loss of earnings. You cannot deduct premiums for a policy
that pays for your lost earnings due to sickness or disability.
However, see item (8) in the previous list.
- Certain life insurance and annuities.
- For contracts issued before June 9, 1997, you cannot deduct
the premiums on a life insurance policy covering yourself, an
employee, or any person with a financial interest in your business if
you are directly or indirectly a beneficiary of the policy. You are
included among possible beneficiaries of the policy if the policy
owner is obligated to repay a loan from you using the proceeds of the
policy. A person has a financial interest in your business if the
person is an owner or part owner of the business or has lent money to
the business.
- For contracts issued after June 8, 1997, you generally
cannot deduct the premiums on any life insurance policy, endowment
contract, or annuity contract if you are directly or indirectly a
beneficiary. The disallowance applies without regard to whom the
policy covers.
- Insurance to secure a loan. If you take out a policy on your
life or on the life of another person with a financial interest in
your business to get or protect a business loan, you cannot deduct the
premiums as a business expense. Nor can you deduct the premiums as
interest on business loans or as an expense of financing loans.
Self-employed insurance deduction.
You may be able to deduct up to 60% of the amount you paid during
2001 for medical insurance and qualified long-term care insurance for
you and your family.
How to figure the deduction.
Generally, you can use the worksheet in the Form 1040 instructions
to figure your deduction. However, if any of the following apply, you
must use the worksheet in chapter 7 of Publication 535.
- You have more than one source of income subject to
self-employment tax.
- You file Form 2555 or Form 2555-EZ (relating to
foreign earned income).
- You are using amounts paid for long-term care insurance to
figure the deduction.
Prepayment.
You cannot deduct expenses in advance, even if you pay them in
advance. This rule applies to any expense paid far enough in advance
to, in effect, create an asset with a useful life extending
substantially beyond the end of the current tax year.
Example.
In 2001, you signed a 3-year insurance contract. Even though you
paid the premiums for 2001, 2002, and 2003 when you signed the
contract, you can only deduct the premium for 2001 on your 2001 tax
return. You can deduct in 2002 and 2003 the premium allocable to those
years.
More information.
For more information about deducting insurance, see chapter 7 in
Publication 535.
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