Whether you have newborns, toddlers or grade-school children in the house, they make life enjoyable and hectic all at the same time, as well as expensive. Fortunately, there are ways to reduce your tax bill this season and help with some child-related expenses. Cleo Hamel, senior tax analyst at H&R Block Canada offers the following tax tips for Canadian families to help in the process:
Family-Friendly Tax Tips to Help You Save Money
Signed up for kinder gym? The Children’s Fitness Amount is a non-refundable credit that is worth up to $500 for children under the age of 16 enrolled in an eligible program of physical activity. Not every program meets the eligibility guidelines; make sure you keep your receipts. Children with disabilities will qualify for an advanced credit if they are younger than 18.
Claim childcare: Keep all your receipts for childcare expenses. From daycare to nannies to babysitters, childcare expenses are claimed by the lower-income spouse. Unfortunately, any unused amount cannot be claimed by the higher-income earner unless there was a period of separation of 90 days or more or the other spouse was in school, prison or the hospital. And if you paid your older child to look after younger ones, he or she has to be 18 or older to qualify as a childcare expense.
Artistic impression: The Children’s Arts Credit can cover a wide range of activities from Girl Guides to language lessons to art classes. The organization should provide a receipt so you can claim up to $500 as a non-refundable federal credit.
Kids are a credit: Parents can claim the $2,191 Child Tax Credit for each child younger than 18. This will result in a federal tax saving of $328 per child. If one parent cannot use the entire amount to lower their tax payable, the unused amount can be transferred to a spouse or common-law partner.
Hamel stresses the importance of keeping all your receipts to ensure you can claim everything. Though the tax savings will certainly never equal all the expenses of raising kids, every extra dollar helps.
Avoid missing out on those savings by using tax preparation software, like H&R Block At Home, which guides Canadians through step-by-step tax tips to identify every possible deduction or credit, calculates your return as you go, and ensures you get your maximum refund. Worried you missed something using another software program? Bring it into an H&R Block office and a tax professional will do a free Second Look review. Don’t forget to check out HR Block for more great tax tips!
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GIVEAWAY
Three winners from Canada will receive codes to unlock the full potential of HR Block Online Tax program, including access to great tax tips to help you maximize your refund. Please note that these codes expire on April 30th, so winners must be sure to use them by then. Enter on the form below.
- Information provided by H&R Block (www.hrblock.ca)
About Olfa
my biggest challenge is figuring out if I should put stuff on mine or my husband’s taxes
My biggest challenge is that I dont even know where to start. I always hire an accountant but it would be nice to be able to do it myself and especially online so I could get it back faster lol
I have my biggest challenge managing stocks and capital gains way to confusing
My challenge never ends, even when done I wonder did I claim the the possible deductions…
biggest challenge is see if i’am getting my money worth in taxes
that i contributed enough the rrsp’s to get a tax credit
keeping myself organized
biggest challenge is rounding up all the bills/receipts from the year.
Biggest challenge is starting it – I usually procrastinate every year!!
Finding a couple of free hours in a row to do them.
Making sure I have all the paper work for my wife and kids. Sometimes we misplace the receipts for the kids’ activities.
finding a good program to file them online with
im self employed so that makes it hard
My biggest challenge is getting everything in order to do my taxes, Im usually pretty organized but it still makes things difficult.
I changed jobs to one that has pension contributions. That has made it more difficult for me because I’m not used to that portion of it yet
i dont really have any challenge
i never know what i can claim and what i cant lol
Getting started!
how to file investments
Biggest challenge is navigating all the # boxes back and forth on all pages. Drives me nuts.
no big challenges, other than just getting it done
I have never done my own, and have no idea what I am doing
Gonna do it myself for the first time this year unless I win
Organizing all my husband’s receipts and calculating his self-employment taxes.
Being organized and making sure I have everything I need when I get started.
organizing everything in one place
My biggest challenge is decided if I take them to an accountant or do them myself.
My biggest challenge when doing y taxes is getting/ keeping everything organized.
I have a lot of trouble deciding what I can claim and what I can’t!
Organization. My big problem
My biggest challenge is getting everything organized and making sure I get the most out of my claim.
My husband does our taxes every year so now I am drooling and looking for a LOVE button.Thankss for this.
My biggest challenge is having to do them all alone – and the hubby just yells from the other room ” You almost done babe?”
I would love to do my own taxes but not sure who should claim what to get the largest return.
Mine is figuring out what I can and can’t claim
the know how and the ins and outs
Getting some quiet time to do them!
Finding the time to sit down and do them
trying to find all the eligible deductions
getting all my info together is always an issue
My biggest challenge is trying to get it all organized and finding the time and motivation to sit down and do it!
i always think i can do the taxes on my own, i start then get frustrated and end up asking my daughter for help
My biggest challenge when completing my taxes is the motivation to do it!
My Challenge is the math involved. That’s why I need to win this software!
The biggest challenge involved in doing my taxes is making sure that I have accounted for everything and not left any details out.
Since I went on Maternity Leave I keep having problems with being paid, then having to pay back. I need assistance with all these special entries that I have to account for. I have used H&R block several times!
Not good at math, afraid i will enter something wrong or miss info.
Getting all the receipts by the time I actually want to do the taxes.
plain taxes!! pain in the butt
finding the time to sit down and do them with no disruption! And getting all paperwork in order to get to that stage.
All the paperwork to gather. And the time