Medicare and Self-Employment

Self-employed people who have reached age 65 and are paying Medicare premiums (usually deducted from Social Security benefits) can deduct them on page one of form 1040 as Self-Employed Health Insurance. (This was line 29 on the 2011 form 1040.) This had been a bit of a fuzzy area for taxpayers and tax professionals alike for the last few years, but the IRS recently confirmed that it is OK.