If you suffered from an illness last year, you may be eligible for tax relief on some of the expenses you incurred, especially fees paid to a medical practitioner. Eligible medical professions vary from province to province; find out what you need to know if you reside in Quebec.
Medical Expenses Credit
On line 330 of your federal tax return, you can claim an amount for the medical expenses incurred in the previous year by yourself, your spouse and your minor children. This includes fees paid to many different types of medical practitioners.
The credit is limited to expenses above 3 percent of your income or $2,208, whichever is lower. It is often a good idea for the lowest-earning spouse to claim the entire family’s expenses. At the provincial level, Quebec also allows a similar credit to lower your provincial income taxes.
It is up to each province to decide which fees are admissible for resident of their province. In Quebec, that authority is Revenu Québec.
Admissible Professional Fees in Quebec
Revenu Québec publishes and regularly updates a list of practitioners whose fees are admissible for the medical expense credit. They are:
- Acupuncturists
- Audiologists
- Chiropractors
- Guidance counsellors or psychoeducators who hold a psychotherapist’s permit (for psychotherapy services)
- Dental hygienists
- Dentists
- Dietitians
- Homeopaths
- Marital and family therapists (for therapy services)
- Midwives
- Naturopaths
- Nurses
- Occupational therapists
- Optometrists
- Osteopaths
- Physicians
- Physiotherapists
- Phytotherapists
- Podiatrists
- Psychoanalysts (for therapy services)
- Psychologists (for therapy or rehabilitation services)
- Respiratory therapists
- Sexologists (for therapy services)
- Social workers (for psychotherapy or rehabilitation services provided to accident victims or to persons suffering from an illness or a disability)
- Speech therapists (or speech-language pathologists)
- Any other person practising a profession in which health care and treatment are provided to individuals, if that profession is governed by a Quebec professional order
In addition to being provided by a professional listed above, the services or treatment must be provided in the province of Quebec.
Ineligible Medical Practitioner Fees
Despite the list above, certain types of medical practitioner fees are not admissible for the medical expenses credit. In Quebec, these include fees related to services provided for purely cosmetic purposes, as they are not considered to be medically necessary. As such, surgical and non-surgical procedures purely aimed at enhancing appearance are not eligible. These non-eligible expenses include:
- Liposuction
- Hair replacement procedures
- Filler injections for removing wrinkles
- Teeth whitening
Fees paid for in-vitro fertilization are also excluded, since these are the object of a separate credit with its own set of regulations. The tax credit for the treatment of infertility is a refundable tax credit that may also be claimed for fees paid for artificial insemination.
