Unused Tuition and Education Amounts

[Rae1503]

Background: I did not attend school in 2019 and have not entered any tuition expenses. My unused provincial and federal education amounts are correct, as stated on my 2018 notice of assessment. Prior to entering these amounts on TurboTax I did not have any amount owing. 

Turbo Tax 2019 is claiming my entire unused federal and provincial tuition and education amounts (>$20000 each) under amount claimed in 2019, is this supposed to happen? I cannot edit the amount claimed. If I change the unused tuition amounts to $0, will that affect what the government has listed as my unused tuition amounts?  

Mostly, I am concerned because this amount claimed increases my refund substantially and I do not want to be audited/have to pay it back. 

[TurboTaxHeba]

Your refund is probably correct.

According to schedule 11, CRA requires you to reduce the none-refundable tax credit to zero, NOT the taxes to zero. Which means it is very common to get a huge refund if you have a current or carryforward amount. You will understand it from schedule 11:

Line 5 is your income Line 6 is your non-refundable tax credits (without your tuition)

Line 7 is the difference between Lines 5 and 6 (no negative amounts) You will need to use your current and unsued tuition amount to bring Line 7's value to zero:

1. You apply your unused tuition amount first (Line 1) > report on Line 8
2. Then you use from your current tuition amount (Line 4) >report on Line 10 
3. The total amount used is reported in Line 11. 

You will not be able to carry forward or transfer any amounts until you bring Line 7 to zero first.

Then you can use section B of schedule 11 to determine the unused or transfer amounts. 

What might have happened in the past with your prior tax returns, is that you didn't have enough income to produce an amount in Line 7 > your Line 7  was always zero or with low amount> Therefore, you were able to transfer or carry forward your tuition amount.  Please check the example below for clarification:

I hope this was helpful