Tax deductions on car lease/finance payments?

[ZBL]

Does anyone know if residents can claim a tax deduction on a portion of car lease/finance payments? For example, CRA says that to do that as an employee (of a provincial or municipal health system for example), you have to (a) be required to work away from your employers place of business or in different places, (b) had to pay your own car expenses (ie employer doesn’t cover it). They also consider driving back and forth to your main place of work to be personal use  

 

So so my interpretation of that is this: 

If for example you are a senior path resident, employed by your health system, and you go back and forth to the lab, that doesn’t count since the lab is your primary place of employment as a path resident. But on your R1 year, where you travel to other locations for all sorts of off service rotations, that to me seems like it would count as car use that is tax deductible. As an example, that path resident while on obgyn at one hospital might have to leave back to their lab headquarters for their academic half day, so travel back to their main work place, thereby making the obgyn location different from their primary headquarters. They will also be at a totally new location every 4 weeks. 

 

Does anyone have any experience or thoughts on this?

[A-Stark]

You cannot claim deductions for travel to your "usual place of employment". If you're required to do a rotation in a different location, this is a condition of employment. You're not operating a business as a resident. 

[ZBL]

On 6/16/2018 at 6:10 PM, A-Stark said:

You cannot claim deductions for travel to your "usual place of employment". If you're required to do a rotation in a different location, this is a condition of employment. You're not operating a business as a resident. 

After discussing with the CRA, this is not entirely correct. 

You do not need to be self-employed to claim work expenses - for instance, if you are an employee and you do not receive mileage reimbursements from your employer, you can claim that. 

You are correct that you cannot claim expenses to and from your primary place of business, but the wording regarding rotations in different location is not so clear. From the CRA: 

"1. You were normally required to work away from your employer's place of business or in different places."

As a resident, you work in different places - yes it's part of the employment agreement but that doesn't matter if your employer is not the one paying for the expenses. After talking to the CRA, they are not sure whether simply rotating at different sites would qualify or not for claiming expenses. 

One thing they seemed agreeable about though, is if you are a resident and you travel to different sites in the same day - eg hospital in the morning, clinic afternoon, or hospital in the morning, half-day in the afternoon at a different site, these are things you definitely can claim as you are travelling between multiple sites in the same day, which is not the same as simply driving to and from work. 

 

[bloh]

I claimed the mileage for driving to each of my work sites.

[ZBL]

1 hour ago, bloh said:

I claimed the mileage for driving to each of my work sites.

Yeah that’s what I was thinking - at least for all the sites that are not my program’s home base. 

So basically if I keep track of mileage used for work vs personal, as well as costs like car payments, gas, maintenance, I figure out the total cost of the car for the year that was for work purposes? Did you need a letter or anything from your employer to say we don’t get any vehicle allowances?

 

[A-Stark]

You can claim mileage under certain circumstances but not for car payments or anything like that. You cannot claim costs of a personal vehicle that you use to drive to work. 

[bloh]

On 6/16/2018 at 6:10 PM, A-Stark said:

You cannot claim deductions for travel to your "usual place of employment". If you're required to do a rotation in a different location, this is a condition of employment. You're not operating a business as a resident. 

That is false.

You can claim and deduct travel expenses not from your primary work site. This will be different for different residents. FM residents can generally claim any location that's not their primary clinic. Hospital-based residents can generally claim everything.
It's a term of your employment but you are not reimbursed for it. Thus it's your own personal expense and is deductible. Work will have to give you a form stipulating that they don't cover your expenses and that it's mandatory for you to visit other sites.