As a two income family (or a single parent household) you now have the opportunity to claim income deductions as opposed to tax credits. If you don’t know the difference, refer to this article by Million Dollar Journey.
How much can I claim?
Child care payments up to $11,000 (if the child qualifies for the Disability Tax Certificate) may be claimed by the lower-income spouse, if you paid to have someone look after your child so that you or the other person could:
- Earn income
- Attend school
- or conduct research
I see no reason why you couldn’t take $11,000 worth of ABA receipts and claim them as a child care expense. Be sure you don’t claim them as both a child care and a medical expense. If you are making the invoices and receipts you can use the invoice on my Files page. Ensure that your invoices and receipts specify “Child Care” as the description of service and not ABA therapy or tutoring.
What information needs to be on the receipts and invoices?
CRA requires that the following information be provided in order to claim treatment costs as a Child Care expense:
- Name of the provider
- SIN number
- Dates of service
- Service rendered i.e. “Child Care”
- Signature of the provider
- Receipts indicate “Paid”
What payments can you claim?
Some examples of eligible child care expenses include day-care centres and day nursery schools, some individuals providing child care services, day camps and day sports schools, educational institutions such as private schools (the portion of tuition costs relating to child care services), boarding schools, and overnight sports schools and camps.
I’m still confused. Should I claim ABA as a medical expense?
If you are both working or you are in a single parent household, then you first want to claim child care costs up to the $11,000 limit. This gives you the best bang for your buck, unless you are in the lowest tax bracket.
Use the remainder of your ABA receipts as a medical expense tax credit.
If you have any remaining receipts for child care, respite or babysitting (with a proper receipt of course), then you will use those for attendant care (up to $10,000 per paying individual). The attendant care costs are added to the medical expense tally.
Autism Funding in BC 