Geoffrey Knight - IRS tax credits

IRS Tax Credit for Hypnosis
You Can Get 100% Reimbursement for your Weight Loss and/or Smoking Cessation Hypnotherapy Programs with an I.R.S. Tax Credit.

Tax laws passed for 2003 onwards mean you can get a tax credit that reimburses you 100% for money paid for smoking programs.

You can also be reimbursed 100% for weight loss programs if you were advised by a physician to lose weight.

This is a tax credit - not a tax deduction, so that means 100% credit on your taxes!

Stop Smoking Programs
You can include in medical expenses amounts you pay for a program to stop smoking. However, you cannot include in medical expenses amounts you pay for drugs that do not require a prescription, such as nicotine gum or patches that are designed to help stop smoking.

Weight Loss Programs
You can include in medical expenses amounts you pay to lose weight if it is a treatment for a specific disease diagnosed by a physician (such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes or heart disease). This includes fees you pay for membership in a weight reduction group and attendance at periodic meetings. You cannot include membership dues in a gym, health club, or spa as medical expenses, but you can include separate fees charged there for weight loss activities.

How to Report
To claim the credit, complete Form 8885, Health Coverage Tax Credit, and attach it to your Form 1040 or Form 1040NR. Report the credit on Form 1040, line 67, or Form 1040NR, line 62, and check box c. You cannot claim the credit on Form 1040A or Form 1040EZ.

You must attach invoices and proof of payment for any amounts you include on line 2 of Form 8885 for which you did not receive an advance payment. If you file your return electronically, attach the invoices and proof of payment to your Form 8453. Proof of payment may include a pay stub if insurance is through a spouse's employment, a bank check, or bank statement for premiums that are automatically deducted from your account.

If you claim this credit, you cannot take the same expenses that you use to figure your health coverage tax credit into account in determining your:

Medical and dental expenses on Schedule A (Form 1040) 9/3/2005

Self Employed health insurance distributions

Archer Medical Savings Account (MSA) distributions

[No liability is accepted for this information. You should seek advice from your tax accountant or other professional advisor]

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Focus:
"Alternative and Complementary Medicine versus Conventional Medicine"

I am sure a number of you have heard of Andrew Weil MD, a well-known author on alternative and complementary medicine and a professor at the medical school of the University of Arizona. He has powerful views on the subject of conventional medicine and its attitude to any other non-conventional therapies. He feels that the integration of "conventional" and "alternative" medicine is now being forced upon the medical profession by powerful economic forces. He argues that our health care system is close to total economic collapse. In the early part of this century the medical profession wed itself to technology and now, as the century closes, high-tech medicinal treatments are simply too expensive to deliver to all but the rich segment of the working population.

He states that recent surveys show that as many as one in three American patients are now going to alternative providers, and most of them do not tell their own doctors. There is now a large and powerful consumers' movement that has developed away from conventional medicine and towards alternative practice.

He argues that what patients want is someone who will take the time to listen to their problems, and then explain their treatment options. Someone who will not just offer drugs, but will be conversant with nutritional influences on health and can make intelligent recommendations about the use of dietary supplements. Someone who will not ridicule herbal medicine, Chinese medicine, homeopathy, hypnosis, and other unorthodox therapies and who will strives to be sensitive to mind and body interactions.

Except for a few enlightened individuals, most doctors have a purely biomedical and biochemical approach to therapy and are out of their depth in dealing with the emotional components of many disorders. Because of this, hypnotherapy can treat some ailments better than medical doctors. Dermatological problems are a good example and I am constantly treating eczema and other skin problems in hypnosis. In many cases I have regressed the client and found the real reason why they are suffering. I am then able to reframe that scenario, change their belief system and help them heal themselves.

I recently saw a lady in her mid 60's who had been suffering from Shingles and was suffering great pain around her midriff. She had been taking medication prescribed by her doctor for over four months to little avail. After three sessions of hypnotherapy, the Shingles cleared up and disappeared.

Most medical doctors don't have the time or the inclination to listen to what their patients are saying. They are trained to write out a prescription or to order endless laboratory tests to cover themselves for legal reasons. Hypnosis is a therapy focused on the mind and can treat a vast number of presenting complaints that the medical doctor has not got the time to evaluate. In excess of eleven per cent of the population has a phobia which seriously constrains their day to day living. The most common is social phobia in its many varieties, but there are over 280 known phobias, ranging from fear of flying, spiders, agoraphobia, snakes, public speaking, exams etc.

So many conditions can be treated by hypnosis without the necessity of stuffing a drug down the patient's throat and risking dangerous side effects.

I would like to hear your views, so why not email me and join the debate that out-of-touch politicians are going to be forced to face publicly in the next year or two.