Hi Zach! You are actually next on deck. Thanks for being patient!
Apologies for the slight technical difficulties. Please bear with us for just another minute!
Joe, your question confuses me a bit. If you haven't hit your maximum this year for the HSA you may still contribute and max that out, while at the same time asking to be reimbursed for the medical expenses.
Joe -- That sounds like a great question for our Kim Lankford who writes a lot about HSAs. We're going to forward that on to her, in case she may also be able to address it in her column.
Joe, there's no time constraints on when you put money in and take it out in your example, so go ahead and contribute while also withdrawing money. But if you don't need the money you request as a reimbursement, why not just leave the money in the account? That's another feature of HSAs I love; if you have enough in the account you can often invest the balance. That's what I do with my own HSA account.
Here's a question coming in from Zach:
Joe, the only limit I can think of is that we can no longer contribute to HSAs once we turn 65.
Zach, often those annuities will allow a 10% annual transfer or withdrawal free of those back-end surrender charges.
Zach, they particularly want to see that she's transferring it to another 403b, and will probably require you to complete their own transfer forms. Do ask them about the process.
Joe, Oh, I see what you're doing. Sure, if you want to max out the deduction without coming up with new money then you'd take the reimbursement and turn around and redeposit it, so to speak, as a remainder contribution for the year. Got it. Yes, you can do that. The HSA doesn't care.
Zach, yes, it's a tedious process, but that's how it works.
