I entered tuition fees in my tax return but none were used in the student summary for 2024. As a result, it appears I owe taxes. How can I apply those credits?

Do you have any earned income for Tax Year 2024? 

 

If you have income and you owe CRA then your Tuition fee will automatically get applied to bring your owing down. It is a non-refundable credit. It can only bring your owing down but cannot give you a refund back. Please refer to this CRA link. Your unused Tuition fee will be carried forward automatically to the next year.

 

Please check this. What likely happened is that when you put in your income, TurboTax claimed the Canada Workers Benefit (CWB) (aka the Working Income Tax Benefit) for you. This is a refundable tax credit for people who work but don’t make very much. However, students are usually not eligible for this credit, so when tuition was added, the CWB was removed. Other credits might be affected as well, as the tuition credit must be used before other credits, like the dividend credit.

 

For more information, please refer to this link from TurboTax Hub to understand how Tuition credits gets calculated.

 

 

Thanks for choosing TurboTax.