Family-Friendly Tax Tips by H&R Block

tax tips

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

GIVEAWAY ENDED. Congrats to winners:

– Information provided by H&R Block (www.hrblock.ca)

 

Disclosure: We received compensation for this post. However, we only share information that we feel is beneficial to our readers.

50 thoughts on “Family-Friendly Tax Tips by H&R Block”

  1. finding the time to sit down and do them with no disruption! And getting all paperwork in order to get to that stage.

  2. Rebecca Chestnut

    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!

  3. The biggest challenge involved in doing my taxes is making sure that I have accounted for everything and not left any details out.

  4. My biggest challenge is having to do them all alone – and the hubby just yells from the other room ” You almost done babe?”

  5. 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

  6. My biggest challenge is getting everything in order to do my taxes, Im usually pretty organized but it still makes things difficult.

  7. Making sure I have all the paper work for my wife and kids. Sometimes we misplace the receipts for the kids’ activities.

  8. 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

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