Hiya - I have a question, I have tried and failed a number of times to get this answer, on the Revenue Canada web site, so.....

I'm pretty sure that there are many things you can claim/get a tax break on, things like buying perscription drugs and activities for your kids etc... but is there a list of allowences so I can perhaps budget what my refund might be??

I know this might be a difficult question, and I was looking for (and failed) for something like this:

Kids activities: $2,487
Drugs: $1,826

etc...

Hope you can help and hope it's not a stupid question?

Medical tax credit. This is a non-refundable tax credit = to 15% of the extent that medical expenses exceed $2,011 or 3% of the taxpayer's net income. You can claim the medical expenses of yourself, spouse and dependents so it is usually better for the spouse with the lower income to claim - as long as they have some taxable income.

For NL the credit is at 7.7% on medical expenses above $1,706 or 3% of net income.

There is a child fitness tax credit. This is 15% of up to $500 per child for qualifying courses or activities. I don't think there is a provincial equivalent in Nl so the maximum credit is .15 X 500 = $75.00.

If the activity qualifies as child care (looking after the kids while both parents work) the you can deduct the cost, up to $7,000 per child, from the income of the lowest earning parent.

Ah, thanks for that, much appreciated.

We were able to get something back for the kids activities last year but it wasnt very much - I dont think it even covered her Paradise soccer , which is the cheapest of her activities

I think most of my refund will be based on the things I buy, which I can claim against work and what I do, I guess anything is better than nothing and it makes me smaile that these things are even offered. In the UK, in my whole life, I only ever got 1 tax refund, was for about £200.

Checklist for Childrens fitness for the maximum $500



http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/whtsnw/chcklst-eng.html

Generally between us we get an average of about 5k back - A good lump of that is due to the hefty daycare expenses we have , we are a couple of K over the maximum claimable for 2 kids