Claiming Medical Expenses: Free Healthcare?

Free Health Care? Did you know that Canadians spend on average more than $1,000 on medical expenses each year? It’s estimated that government programs, via our taxes, cover about 72% of medical expenses, which means that we pay for the rest. Your clients may be over-paying on their taxes because they don’t know about medical expense deductions. 

If you are looking for that next professional development course that will help you provide high-value advice to your financially stressed clients, take the Pandemic Benefits Response Course online to sort through the chaotic myriad of benefits and all their pitfalls. Every professional in the tax, bookkeeping or financial services must know how to do that. Enrol by May 31 save $100.

Now is the right time to start a new conversation about retirement with your clients and give a high-value gift to move it forward. Get your copies of Master Your Retirement, Doug Nelson’s best-selling book – with a special offer.

The federal government extended its Canada Emergency Wage Supplement (CEWS) until August 29 last week, and that’s good news for business struggling to recover as Canada comes out of COVID lockdown. That now extends the program to 24 weeks, retroactive to March 15, 2020.

Seniors who qualify for some portion of the OAS (Old Age Security) will receive a one-time tax-free payment of $300 from the federal government to help with COVID-related costs while GIS recipients will get $200 more. Further, another tax information filing extension was announced with this news on May 12: this time to October 1, 2020. For those who don’t need the money there are some interesting leveraging and sharing opportunities.

Taxpayers over the age of 65 who receive the new $300 one-time tax free COVID benefit from the federal government should first use it to cover extra charges due to the pandemic including delivery costs, costs of internet and communications charges and more. But those who don’t really need the money can leverage the gift in several ways.  Here are our top 6 pandemic benefits tips for seniors: 

On May 7 they federal government announced that they’d give $3 billion to the provinces and territories in total to help with the costs to increase the wages of frontline workers nationally. The amount covers three-quarters of the total estimated cost of $4 billion. It’s up to the provinces and territories to define what they consider an essential frontline worker. Let’s look at what the provinces implemented so far!