Hi, I'm doing my mother in law's taxes.
She has a very modest income, CPP, OAS, a few GICs. With her medical expenses claimed, her Federal tax payable is zero. Her only tax payable is the Ontario health premium.
When I run the charitable donation optimizer it suggests claiming all donations this year. However, if I change it to carry all the donations forward to next year, I get the same refund.
So, I realize this may be an unusual case, but it seems like the optimizer is not doing it's job in this case.