If you qualify for a health savings account (HSA) through an employer, there is a chance they may help get you started with contributions. It’s the ideal situation. The more contributions your employer dumps into your HSA account each year, the better. You can then use that money to pay out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. But not all benefit packages are created equal. So, it is nice to know how your employer’s contribution stacks up against others....
So, we’ve done it. We passed the four requirements to qualify for a health savings account test and are now what the Internal Revenue Service calls an “eligible individual”. We qualify for a health savings account and can officially make contributions. The IRS throws this term “eligible individual” around more than 50 times in publication 969, so you will see me start using it more around here. This is where things all start coming together....
In part one of this series, we covered the health savings account (HSA) from a high level. We learned it is a special tax-exempt account that we can use to pay medical expenses. This packs a pretty nice punch. But there are other things to consider and rules to follow before you can join Max’s HSA cult. In part two, we went over the risk the IRS expects us to take on in exchange for...
Uncle Sam isn’t just going to hand you over a tax-exempt health savings account (HSA) without something in return. They want us to have some skin in the game. Risk, as I like to call it. Taking on risk is actually one of the eligibility requirements, and the IRS uses a high deductible health plan (HDHP) to create that risk. That makes the high deductible health plan the bedrock of the health savings account. It’s...
If you play your cards right, health savings accounts can save you some serious money on healthcare. We can use this account to reduce our taxable income and put those tax dollars towards our health. But this isn’t just something you sign up for on a whim. First, we need to understand the rules of the game. But where do we start? I suppose putting together a health savings account series was inevitable. Who knows,...