Ontario Liberal budget chops Healthy Homes Renovation Tax Credit

Yesterday’s Ontario budget had a lot bigger news (the massive use of the taxpayer’s credit card continues), perhaps, but it’s worth noting that the province’s Healthy Homes Renovation Tax Credit is being chopped.

The program will end on Jan. 1, 2017.

It provides a 15 per cent tax credit for “accessibility” renovations (ones that qualify, anyway) for seniors 65-years-old and up.  The maximum project size is $10,000.  The maximum tax credit (we are so good at math here at Canadian Contractor) is $1,500.

The program, launched just over three years ago, has been largely ignored.

Last year, the government budgeted $85.7-million for the program. But it only issued $14.6-million in tax credits. Critics said the program was too complicated, too restrictive, and the approval process was too slow.

No way? A badly-run program from the Ontario Liberals? Surely not! At least this one didn’t cost the taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars in penalty clauses (like the Gas Plants scandal), no computers have been erased (that we know of), and the tiny program won’t add further to the $326-billion in provincial debt that the Liberals are forecasting will be on the books, as of March 2019.

Anyway, you have 10 months to get your client, if they are over 65, a complicated, restrictive and slow $1,500 bucks back. Why not look into it, if you are working for a senior with mobility issues.

After all, if you live and work in Ontario, you’re soon going to be paying thousands of dollars more every year in Carbon Taxes, the Ontario Registered Pension Plan, gas price hikes, electricity price hikes and Ontario Breathing Taxes (that one yet to be announced, sure to be on the drawing board).

Here’s the official website on the Healthy Homes Renovation Tax Credit.