Caregiver Tax Credit Uptake in Canada, 1998-2015: An Analysis of the Longitudinal Administrative Databank

Given Canada's aging population, the growing number of caregivers, and the association between caregiving and financial and economic burden, a better understanding of the uptake of federal caregiving tax credits in the past may inform tax policy in addressing the needs of Canadian caregivers in the future. This study presents a retrospective investigation of the uptake of federal caregiver supports between 1998 and 2015, prior to the policy change in 2017 that consolidated and replaced the existing supports with the Canada caregiver credit. Using annual tax data from Statistics Canada's Longitudinal Administrative Databank, the study employs descriptive statistics to calculate the uptake of caregiving credits between 1998 and 2015 by socio-demographic subgroups of the sample taxfiler population. It assesses whether the rates of uptake matched the profile of caregivers in Canada and finds that married, working-age, immigrant, and higher-income males living in large urban areas had the highest uptake rates. The authors propose that current caregiver-related tax policy would be enhanced by information campaigns that would make the Canada caregiver credit more accessible to informal caregivers most burdened by the financial impacts of caregiving, particularly those from lower income groups.