If you have celiac disease you are able to claim the incremental costs of the gluten free food as a medical expense. In order to claim the expense you need to track the gluten free food during the year and keep the receipts to show that the expenses were incurred.
An app called celitax.ca has been created to track the gluten free food purchases
There are two ways to keep a summary of the expenses during the year;
An app called celitax.ca has been created to track the gluten free food purchases. You can find the app at the apple store and coming soon on android. This app allows you to a take a picture of the receipt which shows the gluten free item and records the items as they are purchased. The app also provides the non-gluten free cost of a similar item which is needed to calculate the incremental cost. There is a monthly fee for using the app.
You could also keep an excel summary to calculate the overall incremental cost of the gluten free food items. You will need to keep each receipt as support in case it is requested by the Canada Revenue Agency.
You could also keep an excel summary
In order to correctly track the incremental costs, the following columns should be used for each type of gluten free food product.
- Description of the item purchased
- Number of times this item was purchased
- Cost of the gluten free food item
- Cost of a similar non gluten free food item
Sample summary
- Description of the item purchased – Bagels
- Number of times this item was purchased – 20
- Cost – $5.00
- Cost of similar non gluten free item – $2.50
- Incremental cost – $2.50
- Claim for bagels (20*2.5) = $50.00
Either method is allowed for tracking the incremental cost of the gluten free food products. For more information on gluten free medical expenses please visit the Canada Revenue Agency link.
Thanks to Jean Dubois of KWB Chartered Accountants for providing this content.
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