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Petitioners’ evidence regarding their medical expenses is
confusing, contradictory, and incomplete, and we are not convinced
that the expenditures in petitioners’ Quicken report represent
deductible medical expenses. Mr. Davis, who required hearing aids
during 1999, testified that his expenses for hearing aids were
reimbursed by a special fund set up by his employer--yet, judging
from the Quicken report, over $800 of the medical expenses went
towards Mr. Davis’s hearing aids. Petitioners claim to have had
employer-provided medical insurance in 1999, yet they reported
over $18,000 in unreimbursed medical expenses on their tax return
and showed only $357 of insurance reimbursements at trial. Dr.
Rinker attempted to explain this by testifying that she excluded
from the Quicken report those medical expenses which were
reimbursed by insurance. But both the report itself and Mr.
Davis’s testimony indicate otherwise. The Quicken report includes
entries for insurance reimbursements, and Mr. Davis testified that
petitioners’ insurance covered all expenditures for prescription
drugs except a minimal copayment. Contrary to Dr. Rinker’s
testimony, the Quicken report includes several entries for
prescription medications costing hundreds of dollars each.
Moreover, several of the expenditures on the Quicken report
appear to relate to procedures that may have been cosmetic in
nature or to purchases of vitamins and nonprescription drugs.
Those expenditures are not deductible. Sec. 213(d)(9)(A) and (B),
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