If you have a Flex Spending Account (FSA) for healthcare expenses through your employer, you are familiar with the “use it or lose it” concept. Each year during December, it’s a mad dash to get that last-minute eye exam, or fill prescriptions, or what-have-you to use up the Flex Spending money before the end of the year. That tradition will, for many folks, be a thing of the past if their employers adopt the carryover rule now allowed by IRS. Traditionally, with a Flex Spending Account (FSA) for healthcare expenses you arrange with your employer to withhold a certain amount of money out of each paycheck and then as you incur expenses for healthcare throughout the year, you can be reimbursed for those expenses up to the amount of your annual withholding for FSA. The money withheld for the FSA is pre-tax, so it’s to your advantage to take part […]
FSA
March 15 is the Deadline for FSA Claims
If you’re a participant in your employer’s Flex-Spending Account plan (FSA), whether for health-care or dependent care cost reimbursement, you have a limited amount of time to claim the monies that have been set aside in your plan. The way these plans work is that you voluntarily decrease your income by a certain amount, generally paycheck by paycheck, and that amount is placed in a separate account. Over the course of the calendar year, you can request reimbursement from your FSA funds for qualified expenses that you’ve incurred. If it’s a health-care FSA account, you can request reimbursement for your healthcare deductibles, co-payments, and co-insurance costs – literally any health-care expense that is not covered (paid) by other insurance. There are limits, though: beginning with 2011, you cannot be reimbursed for non-prescription (over the counter) medications. If the FSA account is for dependent-care expenses, you can request reimbursement for your […]
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