Silver and Gold Magazine Winter 2014-2015 | Page 20

Disability Tax Credit: Do you qualify?
You may be eligible for the Disability Tax Credit (DTC)
– the criteria does not have anything to do with whether you
are working or not. Many full-time Canadians who believe
they are mostly healthy, will qualify.
In many cases Canadians do not consider themselves
disabled, however, under the criteria of the Canada Revenue
Agency (CRA) you may still qualify.
The DTC can be applied retroactively to a maximum of
ten years from the time the impairment began and can also
be used moving forward if your disability is certified.
The DTC is a non-refundable tax credit used to reduce
income tax payable for eligible individuals. The credit helps
offset your expenses related to your impairment.
Health Care Practitioners have a professional responsibility
to complete medical forms requested by their patients.
The CRA determines your eligibility.

How to determine if you qualify:
The three step process:
1.You – Fill out Part A of DTC form T2201, also write a
history of your medical conditions and how they affect you
on daily basis.
2.Health Care Practitioner – Bring the T2201 and your
medical history document to your Health Care Practitioner
so that they can complete Part B, (medical doctor, optometrist, audiologist, psychologist, occupational therapist,
psychotherapist, speech-language pathologist) and certify
the effects of the person’s disability.
3.CRA – Send the complete form to your tax office and wait
for their determination.
The qualified practitioner may charge you a fee to complete
form T2201 but you can claim the cost on your income tax
as a medical expense.

Some areas where you could qualify:
Speaking, hearing, walking, vision, elimination (bowel or
bladder functions), feeding, dressing, performing the mental
functions necessary for everyday life, life-sustaining therapy,
or the cumulative effect of significant restrictions in two or
more of the above impairments.
Provide details about the effects of the impairment on the
person’s ability to perform one (two or more in the case of
cumulative effect) of the applicable basic activities of daily
living. Provide sufficient practical detail to demonstrate how
the patient’s impairment functionally impacts his or her ability

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to perform the applicable basic activities of daily living and
that the impairment has or is reasonably expected to last for
a continuous period of at least 12 months.

Prolonged means the impairment has lasted, or is
expected