Home Accessibility Expenses: Claim Guidelines and Double-Dipping

The process of claiming home accessibility and medical expenses can be complex for eligible parties. When do home accessibility and medical expenses need to be claimed? How do you do it? How do you know which credits you’re eligible for? Here are some key guidelines.

Taxpayers who make alterations or renovations to a dwelling to allow a taxpayer who is over 65 or disabled to gain access to, or be more mobile or functional in the dwelling, may claim a federal non-refundable credit for 15 percent of the lesser of the costs of such renovations/alterations and $10,000. It’s a claim that allows you to legally “double-dip”.

Here’s what we mean: if the taxpayer is disabled, those same renovations may qualify to be claimed as a medical expense. But that can be complicated. Here’s why:

Claims for the Home Accessibility Tax Credit must be made in the year that the expenses are incurred. Claims for medical expenses, though, may be made for any 12-month period ending in the tax year. Where the medical expense claim period crosses the year end, the Home Accessibility claim may be in one year and the medical expense claim in another.

Examples of home renovations that would be eligible for both credits include:

• the cost of installing entrance and exit ramps
• widening of doorways
• lowering shelves
• modifying kitchen cabinets
• moving electrical outlets

Both of these credits are non-refundable, and are rarely of benefit to low-income taxpayers, who already have more credits than income. 

However, where the expenses are actually paid by a supporting person – that is, someone who claims the Canada Caregiver Amount for the lower income taxpayer – the claims may be made by that supporting person. 

For taxpayers who have no supporting person, but who have at least $3,566 ($3,514 for 2017) of earned income, up to 25 percent of the medical expense claim may be refunded under the Refundable Medical Expense Supplement. They may also qualify to claim the Disability Supports Deduction to offset income, although that could affect the RMES claim. You’ll have to do the return both ways to get the maximum benefit in these cases.

Finally, there’s the Disability Amount which applies if the disabled person is markedly restricted in their daily living activities. That requires Form T2201 Disability Tax Credit, signed by a nurse practitioner or qualified medical practitioner.

Bottom line: it really pays to get help from a qualified Tax Services Specialist when there is a disabled person in the family.  

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