Best Tax Tips For Dealing With The 2019 School Year
School is expensive for both parents and postsecondary students, but you can recoup some of that money by preparing for your taxes before you even have to worry about submitting them as part of your bookkeeping. School can be particularly hard on parents, with school supplies, extracurricular activities, trips, sports equipment, and more. Postsecondary students don’t have it any easier either with high tuition rates, expensive textbooks and lab supplies, and costly living amongst many other factors. This makes preparing for tax season all the more important to be able to get some money back after spending so much. Here are several tips to get your finances in order and get some cash back . . .
Tips for Parents
Keep your receipts for everything. In the unfortunate event you get audited, it’s important to have either physical or digital copies of all your receipts. Want an easy method of storing them? Just grab a few envelopes and put all your receipts in one for the month. Make sure to label them appropriately.
Tax credits are very much your friend. Look into each credit and find the ones you’re able to take advantage of. These can vary across provinces, so make sure to investigate what the restrictions and requirements are for each one. You might also be able to claim child care expenses, potentially up to as much as $11,000. Does your child have a learning disability? You may also be able to claim school and tutoring expenses.
A great way to financially prepare for your children’s postsecondary education is by investing money into a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP). That way, they can avoid additional student loans while going to college or university.
Tips for PostSecondary Students
Going off to college or university can also be stressful with the looming challenge of managing life and school, but it’s especially important to keep your receipts because there are many tax credits you’re able to claim, just by attending a postsecondary institution. For example, even for just moving to university or college you can get tax credits for doing so. Planning on using public transit while going to school? You can claim tax credits for that as well.
Because there are a large variety of these tax credits for many different aspects of living and schooling, it’s a good idea is to create a spreadsheet of monthly expenses to keep track of how much you’ve spent in each area. This will allow you to see if you go over the allotted tax credit amount. Plus, it’s a great way to keep track of your personal finances anyway, and might even be able to give you additional insight about where your money is going.
Being able to save money is important, for both parents and students, and tax credits are a great way of getting money back. While it can be taxing to keep track of expenses and receipts, it can save you a lot of time and money in the future.
