Filing Your Return - Students
-> Transfer or carry-forward of unused tuition, education or textbook amounts
Income Tax Act s. 118.8, 118.81, 118.9, 118.91
If you do not have enough income to utilize your total tuition costs,
education amount or textbooks amount, you can either carry forward these amounts
to
future years (no limit to carry-forward period), or you can transfer the costs to your spouse, common
law partner, or to a parent or grandparent of you or your spouse or common
law partner. The maximum amount that can be transferred to a parent or
grandparent is $5,000(note 1), less the costs claimed by the student. This may
still result in costs remaining that can be carried forward. The
transfer of costs to another person should not be more than can be utilized
on their tax return. Then any excess costs can still be carried
forward.
Once unused costs have been carried forward, they cannot
be transferred to anyone in a future year.
There is a Federal tax credit as well as a provincial or
territorial tax credit for tuition, education and textbook amounts.
For this reason, to claim these amounts, or to transfer them to another person, you must complete
both the Federal Schedule 11 of your tax
return, and the provincial S(11) schedule. Québec uses Schedule T for
tuition or examination fees being claimed or carried forward. The
unused amounts carried forward on the Federal Schedule 11 will usually be
different from the unused amounts carried forward on the provincial S(11)
schedule. When claiming the carried forward amounts in the following
year, make sure you use the Federal amounts when completing your Federal
Schedule 11, and the provincial amounts when completing your provincial
S(11) schedule. The Federal and provincial (except Québec)
forms are available on the Canada
Revenue Agency (CRA) website.
If you moved to another province after carrying
forward tuition and education amounts, then you will use the federal
unused tuition and education amounts as a carry-forward when completing the
provincial Schedule 11 for your new province of residence.
Note 1: $5,000 is the maximum
federally and in all provinces and territories except Ontario and
Québec. The Ontario maximum for 2008 is $6,003, less the amounts being
claimed by the student in the year.
Further information on the CRA website:
