Living Donors Online Message Board
Living Donation Discussion and News => Living Donation Forum => Topic started by: bergstromtori on August 19, 2011, 10:32:22 AM
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So I have googled everything about being a Living Donor and stumbled across this. It list the tax credits and deductions by state if you are a living donor. Federal deductions have not passed yet. In my state of Utah I will get a 10,000 tax credit. I am a little concerned that the social worker did not mention this. It makes me wonder how many people missed out on this.
http://www.transplantliving.org/livingdonation/financialaspects/statetax.aspx
I was told that I would be responsible for all lost wages etc, which I am ok with. However it is still nice to know that I will be getting a tax break.
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Tori,
Minnesota also has the State tax credit, but you may want to look closely at your enabling statute language, as in Minnesota it only applies to expenses you (donor) had to pay out of pocket, including only the donor's lost-wages (not attending spouse). I had all my leave time paid through my work's sick time. My wife on the other hand, who was my attending care giver and needed to be off work (without pay) lost a few thousand dollars in wages and the credit did not apply to her lost wages. Often, recipients hold pre-surgery benefits to raise money to pay for some or all collateral expenses incurred by a potential donor.
In our case, our hotel bill for the night before the surgery to the day we left was about $650.00 at the hospital campus Radisson. My recipient's family paid for the bill prior to our check out (was very nice of them) but this meant, our only out-of-pocket expenses were gas/mileage to and from the hospital for the several months/trips from Northern Minnesota to Minneapolis (4.5 hours round trip each time) and my wife's lost wages (two weeks of care for me without a paycheck-about $2,500.00), and yes, you guessed it...the tax credit was nearly non-existent for us.
I only mention this so you can check into it and be informed as to how much, if any of the tax credit you actually will qualify for. I do know that many of the hospitals have access to small grants (U of Minnesota was about $1,000.00) to defray some costs, but again will not cover spouses lost wages. Good luck and best wishes.
Scott 8)
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That's great information! Thanks for sharing :)