8. Deduction for Legal Fees (Line 250)
You can deduct the legal or extrajudicial fees you paid for:
- the establishment of your initial right to receive support payments, the collection of those support payments or the review of your right to receive support payments; or
- the establishment of your initial obligation to make support payments or the review of your obligation to make support payments.
However, in order to deduct the above fees, all of the conditions below must be met.
- The support payments in respect of which you paid the fees are either:
- support payments that you are required to include in your income on line 142 or that you are entitled to deduct on line 225; or
- support payments that are non-taxable for the recipient and non-deductible for the payer.
- You were not reimbursed for the fees.
- You are not entitled to a reimbursement of the fees.
- You did not deduct the fees in your income tax return for a previous year.
Fees paid to obtain a divorce decree or separation order are not deductible.
You can also deduct:
- certain legal fees you paid after 2015 to recover a retiring allowance or a pension benefit or to establish your entitlement to the allowance or benefit, provided they were not deducted in a previous year. As a rule, the deduction cannot exceed the total retiring allowances or pension benefits recovered for which you paid legal fees. Moreover, the recovered amounts must have been included in your income for 2023 or a previous year and must not have been transferred to a registered pension plan (RPP), a registered retirement savings plan (RRSP) or a pooled registered pension plan (PRPP), including a voluntary retirement savings plan (VRSP). The portion of the legal fees paid in a given year that you do not deduct for that year can be carried forward seven years;
- professional fees or expenses you paid in 2023 to prepare, file or pursue an objection or a contestation respecting (among other things) a notice of assessment of income tax, interest or a penalty assessed under the Taxation Act or under a similar law of Canada or a province other than Québec.