From: AlanBaggett@volcanomail.com   
      
   The CRA makes it so hard to get the disability tax credit, many don’t even   
   try :CRA SOTW    
      
   By Erica Alini National Online Journalist, Money/Consumer  Global News    
      
   Only 40 per cent of the more than 1.8 million people who live with severe   
   disability in Canada use the federal disability tax credit (DTC). And the   
   mind-numbing rules devised by the Canada Revenue Agency to assess eligibility   
   for the credit are likely    
   one of the main reasons for such poor uptake.    
      
   That’s the conclusion of a recent review of the credit by the University of   
   Calgary’s School of Public Policy, which also cites low awareness of the   
   credit and limited understanding of its potential benefits as possible causes   
   for low participation    
   rates.    
      
   Canadians with disabilities have to pay a physician or other qualified health   
   professional to certify that they require “life-sustaining therapy”   
   administered at least three times a week, for a total of at least 14 hours a   
   week. Alternatively,    
   doctors and nurses must attest that patients are “markedly restricted in   
   performing a basic activity of daily living all or substantially all of the   
   time, or that the cumulative effect of restrictions across several activities   
   is equal to being    
   markedly restricted in one basic activity of daily living,” write authors   
   Stephanie Dunn and Jennifer Zwicker.    
      
   If that made your head spin, you’re not alone. Even doctors often can’t   
   make heads or tails of it, the report suggests. In fact, some health   
   professionals are refusing to fill out the forms, particularly for mental   
   health patients, for which the    
   criteria for eligibility are even stricter, the study says referencing recent   
   media reports.    
      
   Doctors who do take a stab at completing the forms have different   
   interpretations of what the guidelines mean, which may result in some eligible   
   patients wrongly being denied access to the credit, the report continues.    
      
   And even when physicians fill out applications certifying the eligibility of   
   their patients, they may receive puzzling or inconsistent feedback from the   
   Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).    
      
   Prior research has also raised concerns about “inconsistencies in how   
   applications are reviewed, whether those reviewing applications are qualified   
   to do so, opaque internal review, reconsideration and appeals processes, and   
   the withholding of    
   documentary evidence by the CRA during appeals processes,” write Dunn and   
   Zwicker.    
      
   But the ordeal doesn’t necessarily end there. In many cases, even Canadians   
   who are officially deemed eligible for the DTC must reapply for it after a   
   period of time, even if their disability is a severe and lifelong condition.    
      
   The CRA’s check-the-box approach to assessing disability isn’t working on   
   a number of levels, the report suggests.    
      
   For example, CRA guidelines require that impairment due to mental illness be   
   present continuously for 90 per cent of the time.    
      
   But this doesn’t fit with the nature of mental health disabilities, which   
   are often “temporary, episodic and changing in nature, with symptoms varying   
   in severity and duration over the course of peoples’ lives,” the   
   Schizophrenia Society of    
   Ontario wrote in a 2014 submission to the CRA.    
      
   Another perplexing outcome is the CRA’s recent move to deny the DTC to many   
   Canadians with diabetes on the basis that time spent receiving therapy from a   
   portable insulin pump or counting carbohydrates, which is essential for   
   calculating insulin dosage,   
    doesn’t count as life-sustaining therapy.    
      
   Global News reporting into the diabetes controversy found that one possible   
   reason for the higher reported DTC denials is the fact that the CRA at some   
   point (it’s unclear when), stopped relying on input from registered nurses   
   in the approval process,    
   meaning that a medical professional isn’t necessarily involved in reviewing   
   the applications anymore once they reach the CRA.    
      
   Opaque and inconsistent feedback    
   Sometimes, filing a DTC application can feel like dropping a bunch of   
   paperwork into a black hole.    
      
   Rachel Martens, a full-time caregiver in Calgary, has had two radically   
   different experiences with the tax credit. Her now 11-year old son, who   
   suffers from a rare chromosome disorder, was swiftly approved about a decade   
   ago. But Martens’ sister, who    
   has been diagnosed with a chronic pain disorder called trigeminal neuralgia,   
   is still waiting on a CRA assessment two years after submitting her   
   application in 2015.    
      
   So far, Martens, who acts as her sister’s caregiver, has only received one   
   letter from the CRA about a year ago advising that her sibling’s case needed   
   further examination.    
      
   It’s been silence ever since, and Martens said she has not been able to get   
   further assistance over the phone.    
      
   “It’s been intensely frustrating,” she told Global News.    
      
   Both suffer from rare conditions associated with high mortality rates, she   
   said, adding that she felt “frustrated over a lack of standard.”    
      
   The Liberal government’s recent reinstatement of the Disability Advisory   
   Committee (DAC), which will bring together stakeholders and CRA officials, is   
   a “promising step” toward improving accessibility to the DTC, write Dunn   
   and Zwicker. But the    
   system needs a much broader shake up.    
      
   DTC is key to receiving other disability benefits    
   The DTC itself is a non-refundable tax credit that lowers or eliminates the   
   tax bill for Canadians living with disability and their caregivers, who often   
   struggle with both higher living expenses and lower income.    
      
   But being approved for the DTC is also a precondition for accessing a number   
   of others — often more financially significant — benefits, the University   
   of Calgary study notes. Among them are the Child Disability Benefit and   
   government contributions to    
   the Registered Disability Savings Plans.    
      
   Overall, the DTC and linked benefits are worth up to $12,000 a year for a   
   median-income family and $7,600 for an adult with a severe disability making   
   $45,000 in annual income, the authors calculate.    
      
   Essentially, said Martens, the “DTC is the gateway to everything.”    
      
   That it can be so elusive to gain eligibility is “an intimidation factor”   
   for families, she added.    
      
   – With a file from Global News National Online Journalist Monique Scotti    
   © 2018 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.    
      
      
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