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medical payments from wife ira, sepp from husband

L1: medical payments from wife ira, sepp from husbandFirst of all, thanks for fast reply to my question about single payment/multiple iras.
Now, for something a little more involved… I’m taking $40,000/yr from my IRAs. My wife has several iras of her own. Can we take money out of one of her iras using the medical exception to avoid penalties and if so is there an issue with apportioning medical expenses?. We routinely have 5,000-10,000 deductible medical expenses but the expenses are spread out over entire family (children).
There seems to be a certain inconsistency in the rules – medical deductions are based on entire family expenses and entire family income but IRA withdrawal rules are person specific.
TIA, patrick2004-04-14 13:36, By: patrick, IP: [216.12.43.26]

L2: medical payments from wife ira, sepp from husbandHello Patrick:
I suppsoe in sense tnere is an inconsistency; nonetheless you are fine with making withdrawals from your wife’s IRA to cover qualified (Schedule A) medical expenses in excess of 7.5% of AGI. However, beware of the trap. You can really only take out approx. 92% of the qualifiying medical expenses because the withdrawal you make form the IRA increases your AGI therefore increasing the medical expense floor.
TheBadger
wjstecker@wispertel.net
2004-04-14 17:28, By: TheBadger, IP: [38.116.134.130]