Where FSA Debit Cards May Be Used
Unlike other debit cards, the IRS does not allow FSA debit cards to be used at every merchant that accepts Visa or MasterCard. Rather, only the following types of merchants may accept an FSA debit card, usually enforced using "merchant category codes" or "merchant type codes" assigned by Visa and MasterCard:
- Medical providers such as doctors and hospitals.
- Merchants with an inventory information approval system (IIAS). In an IIAS, a merchant flags "FSA-eligible" items in its point of sale database so they can be separated from all other items by its scanner (brick-and-mortar) or shopping cart (online); it then permits only the "FSA-eligible" items to be charged to the card, with another form of payment required to purchase all other items.
- Until December 31, 2007, all grocers, discounters, and online pharmacies. These merchants must install an IIAS to accept the card after this date.
- Until December 31, 2008, all "true pharmacies" (i.e., those not located inside grocery or discount stores and not online). They must install an IIAS after this date, unless 90% or more of their sales are of FSA-eligible items (prescriptions or over-the-counter items).
Read more about this topic: FSA Debit Card
Famous quotes containing the words debit and/or cards:
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Out in Hollywood, where the streets are paved with Goldwyn, the word “sophisticate” means, very simply, “obscene.” A sophisticated story is a dirty story. Some of that meaning was wafted eastward and got itself mixed up into the present definition. So that a “sophisticate” means: one who dwells in a tower made of a DuPont substitute for ivory and holds a glass of flat champagne in one hand and an album of dirty post cards in the other.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)