There are fees associated with the International Baccalaureate (IB) courses offered to senior high school students. The typical fees (at least in 2023) are $3,000 for the Grade 11 and 12 IB Diploma program, which covers 3 Higher Level (HL) courses and 3 Standard Level (SL) courses. The HL level course are accepted at Canadian and international universities as equivalent to a first year university course and the student may be granted an exemption at university for each HL course taken in high school. Based on this fact, the fee for any IB HL course qualifies as tuition by Canada Revenue Agency (RCA). The fee can be claimed as tuition, as long as the student is at least 16 years old by the end of the year in which the HL course is taken.
Like any other tuition, it is transferable as a tax deduction to a parent or it can be carried forward indefinitely, until the student has income to offset. The course fees for the HL IB courses would be about $2,000 (out of the total $3,000) so the tax reduction would be roughly $600.
The average taxpayer will find it difficult to understand the correct tax treatment of these fees from a reading of the Income Tax Act and relevant folios (guidelines) issued by RCA. And most tax practitioners and RCA front line advisors are not familiar with the circumstances that allow HL IB fees to be treated as tuition. However, I obtained a tax ruling from RCA Income Tax Rulings Directorate that clarifies that secondary schools offering HL IB fees are educational institutions under subparagraph 118.5(1)(a)(i) of the Income Tax Act and thus, the course fees for post-secondary courses that they offer, like HL IB courses, are tuition and tax deductible. The link to this severed tax ruling is as follows: https://taxinterpretations.com/cra/severed-letters/[phone number removed]e5. Please note that CRA does not publish tax rulings on their website – they are only available from third party publishers of tax information.
If the student attended a private high school, that school will automatically issue the T2200 form with the HL IB fees paid which can then be used as a receipt to support the tuition expense for the income tax return.
However, if the student attended a public high school, you will most likely find that the public high school will not issue a business receipt or a T2200 form for the HL IB fees and may advise you, vehemently, and incorrectly, that the fees are not tuition and not tax deductible. I believe that the reason that public schools do not issue the T2200 is due to 2 factors – ignorance of the law but primarily, to avoid the administration.
Even without the T2200 and business receipt, the HL IB fees paid can be claimed as tuition by providing alternative evidence of the amount paid (a copy of IB fee schedule from the high school, a copy of the student’s IB course enrollment, and a copy of the cheque used to pay the IB fees) and most importantly, with a letter of explanation to RCA referencing the tax ruling # 2019-081584. And remember you can go back 10 years to claim a missed expense as an adjustment (Form T1 Adjustment) – in other words, you can still get your tax refund in 2024 from an HL IB fee paid in 2014!
One further complication in claiming HL IB fees as tuition when you don’t get a T2200 form from the high school is determining the cost per course. Sometimes the high school will show in their IB literature what the cost of an individual HL course is, but most often they only state the total cost of the IB Diploma program as, say $3,000, for the 3 HL and 3 SL courses in Grades 11 and 12. Since HL courses are twice as long as SL courses, the cost of the 3 HL courses can be calculated as 2/3 of the total. This method of calculation should also be explained to CRA in your explanatory letter.
Similarly, the fees associated with Advanced Placement (AP) programs in high school are also tax deductible. The link to this severed tax ruling is as follows: https://taxinterpretations.com/cra/severed-letters/[phone number removed]-0.
If you want to claim 2023 HL IB fees on your 2023 tax return, I recommend that you file your return without claiming these as tuition initially, which means that you can efile the return. Once you receive your initial 2023 assessment, then complete the T1 Adjustment form to claim the HL IB 2023 tuition - this form allows you to attach the necessary Explanatory Notes (and you will have to mail it in).
This explanation is provided by a CPA, CA with lived experience in claiming HL IB fees, retroactive up to 10 years, for numerous IB public high school students, without receipts or T2200 forms provided by the high school.
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