Disability Tax Credit

If you've been recently diagnosed with a mental illness, you may believe you qualify for the DTC.

However, diagnosis alone is not sufficient to qualify for the DTC. In the case of a recent diagnosis, if your doctor or psychologist believes there are medications or therapies which could help your condition that have not been exhausted yet then they should not be signing the application yet. If you are impaired but not disabled, you may qualify under the cummulative effects but these cummulative effects of impairment must affect your activities of daily living (as defined on the DTC website). In order to qualify for the DTC, the disability has to be permanent and unable to be corrected at the time you were substantially impaired. 

The threashold for qualifying is high; marked restriction which is defined as all of the following:

• You are unable to do the activity, or it takes 3 times longer than someone of similar age without the impairment, even with the use of appropriate therapy, medication, and devices
• This restriction is present all or almost all of the time (generally at least 90%) and
• The restriction has lasted or is expected to last for a continuous period of at least 12 months

The DTC Self-Assessment by Disability Alliance BC is a good starting point to see if you might qualify.  It is also highly recommended that you visit the Government of Canada Disability Tax Credit website to see if you qualify. 

If you would like to proceed with the application, you must provide a letter to your psychologist, which describes in your own word the impact your illness has on your ability to perform the basic activities of daily living as listed on the government DTC website. You may also print or email the results of the self-assessment.