Applying for disability tax credit


Work in progress - dispatch from the front line.

Today I am going to open the tax credit application form from the Canada Revenue Agency for families providing caregiving to family members unable to care for themselves.

This is the t2201-22e form - Disability Tax Credit Certificate. It is my first time going through the form.

My instructions from Mom's GP is to fill out my notes for the information he will need to complete his section, too, as I am the one who has the most information about what Mom needs on a day to day basis.

This is a 16 page form.

Part A - Individual's section asks for information about the person with the disability and the person claiming the disability amount.

Part B - Medical Practitioner's section asks for information describing the severity and frequency of the care recipient's impairment

  • Vision
  • Speaking
  • Hearing
  • Walking
  • Eliminating
  • Feeding
  • Dressing
  • Mental Functions
  • Cumulative Effect of Significant Limitations
  • Life Sustaining Therapy
We started making plans to bring Mom home from mental health group home after a health crisis in the spring of 2016. At that time we did not know what we were facing. None of us had done this work before. None of us were medical professionals.

As a sibling group, we had limited and varied experiences working together. We did not have a shared history of planning, problem solving, communication management, or team building.

Some of the things that stood out for me as I inputted my notes to the practitioner's section:
  1. Our situation with Mom could be much worse and we need to prepare for increasing infirmity;
  2. Given the number of impairments that Mom already has we are doing really well with our care of her;
  3. It was helpful to think about Mom's limitations according to these headings, to be able to put a name to the different limitations that we manage on a daily basis;
  4. Using the ratings scale for frequency and severity helps to understand the significance of Mom's limitations and appreciate the scope of work we are doing to keep Mom comfortable and in good spirits;
  5. It was impossible to answer the questions about when the impairments began, I just used the date she moved home;
  6. As a sibling group, we have grown immensely in our capacity to communicate and our capability to pitch in and help take care of Mom, we have grown closer to each other as we work on our collective mission to take care of Mom at home.
The maximum benefit of the tax credit is currently $8,900 deduction from 2023 taxable income. 




This amount does not come close to covering the additional costs incurred by my family and myself to take care of Mom at home. If Mom were in an institution, this amount would not come close to covering the cost of providing the care infrastructure of that institutional bed.

We can do a much, much better job of supporting family caregiving, and it is imperative that we do so. Our health system is depending on families like mine to provide the majority of healthcare in our healthcare system. The allocation of resources for healthcare needs to reflect the real value of the work provided.

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