While most of us are familiar with common medical expenses such as unreimbursed prescription drugs and dental fees, depending on the situation, medical expenses can also include certain home renovation costs.
In the 2005 federal budget, the definition of eligible renovation expenses became somewhat more restrictive to curb what the government perceived as abuse by certain taxpayers who were writing off the cost of a hot tub or hardwood flooring installation as a medical expense. Two conditions were added to the definition to ensure that a taxpayer, in claiming the medical expense credit for renovations, was not “subsidizing personal consumption and personal choices.”
These conditions are that the expenses “are not of a type that would typically be expected to increase the value of the dwelling” and that they “are of a type that would not normally be incurred by persons who have normal physical development or who do not have a severe and prolonged mobility impairment.”
But does this mean that the cost of installing hardwood floors can never be a valid medical expense?
That was the issue in a tax case decided last month involving a taxpayer who spent $3,675 in 2010 to install engineered hardwood flooring in her home to assist her husband, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, “which makes walking on surfaces that offer friction like carpets both difficult and unsafe due to risks from falling.”
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