How do I get the payroll deduction for health insurance to show as an expense?

R2power

I am a new user trying to analyze my total spending as I approach retirement. It seems to me that employer provided health insurance is still an expense to me that I ought to be able to view as a part of my spending, but it captures this as a subcategory of income. I am using Quicken for Windows and it is a current release as I just downloaded it 2 weeks ago.

Tom Young

"employer provided health insurance is still an expense to me"

If your employer is paying for your health insurance then that's a "benefit" and it's simply not an "expense", period.

If you're contemplating retirement and that benefit goes away then you'll start incurring that expense after retirement, certainly, so you'll want to plan for it, but while you're employed there's no way to somehow account for that a benefit as an expense.

R2power

I guess I don't agree. My share of the payment comes out of my paycheck, so it is an expense to me. I may only be paying about 20% of the cost, but it is still a cost.

NotACPA

Are you using the Paycheck Wizard? Whether yes or no, why can't you simply input the amount you pay, as a reduction from the Gross amount … the same as taxes, in your current paycheck transaction?

Boatnmaniac

I think with most reports the logic with paycheck deductions for your share of the cost of employer-provided health insurance (and other pre-tax deductions like 401k contributions, flex spending and dependent care) is that they reduce your taxable paycheck income. So they are shown as deductions to gross income in the Income section of reports and not as after-tax expenses in the Expenses section. By doing it this way, the reports will provide you with a total income that is more representative of pre-tax taxable paycheck income than it is of the gross paycheck.

After-tax paycheck deductions do not reduce paycheck taxable income so they are shown in reports as expenses in the Expenses section.

By doing it this way, the data is also captured properly in the Tax Reports and in Tax Planner.

The above comments are applicable to when a paycheck reminder is set up using the categories that were set up by Quicken for paycheck deductions whether via the Paycheck Wizard or a manually set up Income Reminder.

To get the pre-tax paycheck deductions showing in the expenses section you will need to set up a manual Income Reminder for your paycheck and then use a non-paycheck tax-related category. They should then be reflected in the Expenses section (just like withheld income tax and private healthcare insurance premiums are) but the Tax Reports will not be accurately reflecting the data in the correct sections of those reports or, in the event of using an after-tax category for 401K contributions, might not even be included in the Tax Reports or Tax Planner at all.

At least this is my understanding of the rationale for the logic.

R2power

I did, but the category it offered is classified as a subset of income, so it is not included in my spending summary. It does not appear that I can recategorize this to an expense short of creating a new expense category and moving the transactions. Same is true for Dental Insurance and the Legal plan they sell me. I set up a dummy flexible spending account making a deposit from the account created through the paycheck wizard so I can capture the expenses paid from it as well.

R2power

I see Boatnmaniac's point. I just think that expenses are still spending whether before or after tax. But I really appreciate all of the thoughtful input. Thanks.

Tom Young

non sequitur