No double dipping on medical tax breaks

Dear Tax Talk, I have a quick question on deducting medical expenses. I work for an employer who offers medical insurance. My portion of insurance premiums is taken before taxes. Am I still allowed to deduct my insurance premiums as medical expenses?
Thank you,
-- Eric

Dear Eric,
In taxes, there are rules against double dipping. This means that you cannot claim a deduction for an amount that you did not claim as income.

Since your health insurance premiums were not taxed, then it would not be right to claim them as a deduction. Since medical expenses are only deductible if you itemize and the expenses exceed 7.5 percent of your adjusted gross income, it would always be better that the medical insurance premiums be excluded from your wages rather than deducted. By excluding them from wages you also save on FICA and Medicare taxes, which could be 7.65 percent in addition to the income tax savings.

The same rules apply if you contribute to a flexible spending account at your job. An FSA is an arrangement between an employer and employee to defer a certain portion of an employee's salary for eligible fringe benefits that may be excluded from the employee's wages. For example, an employee that earns $30,000 a year may elect to defer $1,000 of his wages into an FSA to pay for child care or unreimbursed medical expenses. The employee would be paid $29,000 in wages through his periodic pay with the appropriate taxes deducted and would claim the additional $1,000 in deferred wages by submitting eligible expenses to his employer, where no taxes would be deducted.