One of my family members often helps her friends file their income taxes with TurboTax.  For a couple she helped (let’s call them the Greens), she entered their medical expenses the way she thought was best.  Then TurboTax offered to “optimize” the medical expenses.  So, she tried it.  The result was that the Greens owed almost $2000 more in taxes.  So much for optimization. Optimizing medical expenses is surprisingly tricky.  You get to decide which partner in a couple makes the claim.  The Greens have unusually large medical claims this year.  When Mr. Green claims them, the total taxes owing for both of them is nearly $2000 less than when Mrs. Green claims them.  But TurboTax insists that Mrs. Green should claim them.  What went wrong? The answer begins with how medical expenses affect your taxes.  First, your claim is reduced by 3% of your net income, but this reduction is capped at $2397 (in 2020) for higher earners.  So, ...

Canada has socialized medicine that covers a wide range of medical needs. We usually say that these services are “free” to Canadians. Of course, by “free” we mean that all costs are shifted to taxpayers. However, many hospital patients and even visitors get hit with a form of user fees. These fees come in the form of parking costs. In a recent evening trip to my local hospital, I was charged $14 for parking from about 6:30 pm to 10:30 pm. This isn’t a lot of money, but it is much more than the going rate for evening parking in this area. I could have taken the bus if I wanted to avoid paying for parking, but the last thing I was thinking about while heading to the hospital was a few dollars. I suspect this is true of most others who go to the hospital. So, hospitals are mostly free to charge what they want for parking. Hospital parking rates in my area have been rising much faster than inflation for several years. Parking fees aren’t likely to ever be officially considere...