H&R Block’s tax software helps you optimize the information you’ve entered into your tax return, allowing you to lower your taxable income, apply for additional credits, and even split tax credits or transfer them to your spouse (if applicable).
You can click the Update Refund or Tax Owing button on any of the following pages under the OPTIMIZATION icon to see how each adjustment impacts your return, in real time.
Your 2017 income
Depending on your eligibility and the information you’ve already entered in your return, you’ll be able to claim the following credits and deductions on this page by answering a few additional questions:
- Your RRSP contributions – you’ll be able to see the amount that’s available to be claimed this year and enter the amount you want to claim. Any remaining amount will be carried forward to next year.
- Pension income splitting
- Québec tax shield credit – if you want Revenu Québec to calculate this credit for you.
- Québec solidarity tax credit
- Québec tax credit for income averaging as a forest producer – you’ll be able to see the maximum allowable amount for this year and enter the amount you want to claim
- Québec cooperative investment plan (CIP) deduction – you’ll be able to see the amount that’s available to be claimed this year and enter the amount you want to claim. Any remaining amount will be carried forward to next year.
Credits and claims
On this page, you’ll see a breakdown of the credits and expenses you’ve entered in your return and those that have been claimed for you automatically.
Credits and deductions (such as the basic personal amount, age amount, Canada employment amount, interest paid on your student loan and more) that are claimed automatically for you are based on your specific tax situation and can’t be claimed differently.
Other amounts, such as your medical expenses working income tax benefit, public transit expenses, or applicable provincial amounts can be claimed by you or your spouse or common-law partner. On this page, you’ll be able to change who’s claiming these amounts to optimize your return.
Dependant amounts (if applicable)
On this page, you’ll be able to make sure that you’ve claimed all your eligible dependant credits and optimize your dependant’s amounts, including tuition amounts and in certain cases, child care expenses.
Spousal transfers (if applicable)
If your marital status for the year was “married” or “common-law”, we’ll show you a list of credits (such as the disability amount) that can be transferred between you and your spouse or common-law partner.
Education transfers (if applicable)
On this page, you can transfer the federal and provincial tuition amounts (that you didn’t use to reduce your own taxes), to an eligible family member to help them lower their tax payable. An eligible family member can be:
- Your spouse or common-law partner
- Your parent or grandparent or
- Your spouse’s or common-law partner’s parent or grandparent
Note: Only the current year’s unused tuition amounts can be transferred. You can’t transfer any unused tuition amounts that you carried forward from a previous year.
Things to keep in mind:
- If your spouse is claiming the spousal (or common-law partner) amount on your behalf, your spouse is the only person you can transfer your unused tuition amounts to.
- You must transfer your unused federal and provincial tuition amounts to the same person.0.
If you don’t want to transfer your tuition amounts, don’t worry – H&R Block’s tax software will carry forward these amounts so you can claim them in a future year. You’ll see the carry forward amounts on your completed return and on your notice of assessment for the year.
