Attendance at a fitness club as an extraordinary expense

General medical certificates with advice are not sufficient for considering the costs of a fitness and health club as medical expenses.

The costs of visiting a fitness and health club are not deductible as extraordinary expenses if the taxpayer does not submit a medical prescription, but only blanket medical certificates, according to which general sports therapy, physiotherapy, movement exercises, massages and movement exercises in the movement bath under therapeutic guidance are required and build-up training of the musculature through movement baths, muscle training and gymnastics courses are advised. Such certificates do not meet the legal requirements, the Cologne Fiscal Court found, because they do not show whether the specific expenses and the measures on which they are based were medically necessary under the circumstances.