you don’t amend previous year’s return, you simply file a T1A with this year’s return, http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pbg/tf/t1a/README.html

As to your second question, you will see from the form itself, you can apply the refund to any 2008 taxes owing.

No need to hire expensive accountants, a simple search on CRA’s website does the trick.

What if you owe money for this tax year (not due to capital gains), but then the loss carry back would give you a refund for previous years? Do you still pay the amount owing and then they’ll refund you for the previous years based on the amendment?

For example on the 2008 taxes I could write off expenses from Feb 1, 2007 to Jan 31, 2008

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/ncm-tx/rtrn/cmpltng/ddctns/lns300-350/330/lgbl-eng.html

Thank you.

“For both parts of the medical credit, the total
qualifying medical expenses will include
those paid within any 12-month period
ending in the year. Therefore, you have some
flexibility in choosing the 12-month period,
and obviously should pick the period in
which the most expenses were incurred. In
the year of death, this period is extended to
any 24-month period that ends in the year.”

Borrowed from http://www.apa-ca.com/en/PDF/Tax%20Letter%20September%202008.pdf

I guess we will both have to round up all of our receipt and see which 12 month period ending in 2008 cost us the most money!

Rob & Peter,

In my travels I read that you can claim your 20% paid portion of your benefits but you can only claim your contribution to the plan if it is not taken pre-tax from your income.

You can claim expenses for any 12-month period ending in the current tax year. Hope that answers your question.

If I have pay stubs and medical receipts from last year AND previous years (which I haven’t claimed), can I also claim the amount from previous years in this tax year? or am I screwed because of my lack of knowledge?

Great list.

Not sure if you are aware that if you are a self employed sole-proprietors of an unincorporated businesses, #3 (Claiming Home Office) and #4 (Medical Expenses) can be ramped up with the set up of a Private Health Services Plan (PHSP).

This is like your own health bank account. You can contribute up to $1,500 for yourself and your spouse and $750 per child, however there is a 2-year forfeiture from date of deposit for making claims.

These “bank accounts” are 100% tax-deductible and can be used for financing all non-covered health-related expenses to make them 100% tax deductible, up to the limits above.

Every little bit helps!

I am pretty sure that you can only claim out of pocket expenses so claim the 20% plus the premiums deducted from your employer. Keep your pay stub from last year as these amounts do not show up on a T4.

The same reasoning applies for tuition payments. If you are reimbursed part from your employer then you can only claim the net.

Note: Always verify with your accountant / tax preparer to ensure that you have captured all your allowable deductions.

Peter

I also started planning in advance for this year (2009) and have already maxed out the TFSA contributions for both of us via savings that we had been doing just for this since July last year. ING Direct paid us extra $30 each to cover our taxes as we had opened TFSA accounts in advance with them.

I learnt about super flow-through shares through this website only recently, and hence missed out on that for last year. But will plan to keep around 2-3% of my overall portfolio for that for this year. I am still wary of claiming home-office deductions, and other business expenses, and smith maneuver and hence didn’t do any of that. We like to keep our debts lower and hence I paid 4 extra principal payments on our mortgage to wipe off 2 years off the mortgage this year, and also converted it to use an accelerated bi-weekly payment structure and wiped off another 9 years off the mortgage payments.

Ahem . . . the economist in my feels the need to speculate that you likely meant to say “taxpayer funded” health care.

My 36% marginal tax rate tells me that it isn’t “free”.

Medical expenses can be claimed be either spouse, regardless of which spouse (or dependant) incurred the expense.

Therefore, have the lower earning spouse claim all the medical expenses to get the maximum credit.

But, these are things we do every year. This year, we made one significant change with respect to charitable contributions. I finally convinced my wife that instead of buying extra groceries and donating it to the box at the cashier line, it is better to donate money to the foodbank. There are two reasons:

1. We get a tax receipt if we donate money but we don’t if we buy jars of peanut butter or tuna and drop them in the box. This means that we can effectively provide more benefit to the charity at the same cost to us.
2. I’ve heard from the foodbank at which we volunteer that they are often able to use the money not only to buy the things most in need (often they are low on baby formula) but they can take advantage agreements they have whereby they can purchase items at wholesale prices rather than what we pay.

So now we have an automatic amount deducted from our account to help our local foodbank at a time when they are in most need.

Finally, another way in which I personally reduced my taxes is I earned less. Not exactly ideal, but unfortunately a reality for many people last year and in 2009 for sure…