Written by Tom Drake

There are a few rules to claiming medical expenses, but with a little planning there are ways to maximize your claim.

Of your total medical expenses, you have to subtract 3% of your net income (line 236 of your tax return) or $1,962, whichever is less. So if your net income is $40,000, you cannot claim the first $1,200 of your medical expenses.

You can claim medical expenses for you, your spouse or common-law partner, and your and/or your spouse’s children. This way you only have to make the subtraction above once, to the combined total of your family’s medical expenses.

You can claim under either you or your spouse or common-law partner. You will benefit by claiming under whoever has the lower net income. Continuing from the example above, if your spouse has a net income of $30,000, you can claim everything above the first $900, allowing $300 more than if it was claimed on your tax return.

You can claim for any 12 month period, ending in the tax year of your return, as long as you didn’t claim the same expenses in the previous year. This may not make a difference to someone with regular prescriptions and other medical expenses. Where it could be useful is if your medical expenses in the previous year were too low to claim, but maybe the majority of your expenses were in the last three months of that year. By claiming a 12 month period of Oct – Sept, you may have a bigger expense to claim than Jan – Dec.