Claiming Medical Expenses

by Lake, Bookkeeping Essentials
(BC, Canada)

CRA has a very useful chart for authorized medical practitioners by province or territory.

Use this reference for the purposes of determining which payments to practitioners are authorized for claiming medical expenses on your annual tax returns.

While taking an H&R Block tax course in the fall of 2009, our instructor pointed out that each province regulates their own professional medical practitioners ... so as you can imagine, there is a variety of differences between the provinces.

For example dentists and doctors are authorized all across Canada, but only BC , Ontario and Newfoundland allow your Massage Therapist payments to be claimed and chiropractic expenses are not claimable in every province.

What this means to you, as you prepare your own tax return, is that some expenses may be allowed in some provinces but not in others. This list becomes very useful given the disparities.

The chart is located on the CRA website Individuals > Tax return > Deductions > Medical expenses > List of allowable medical expenses. (I like to put the file path just in case CRA moves things around on their site.)

If you search for Line 330 on the site, you will also be able to get a list of which medical expenses are eligible for the non-refundable tax credit (Schedule 1) and which expenses are ineligible.