{"id":320088,"date":"2025-12-02T07:49:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T07:49:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/320088\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T07:49:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T07:49:30","slug":"understanding-the-new-personal-support-worker-psw-federal-tax-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/320088\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the new Personal Support Worker (PSW) Federal Tax Credit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The federal government just announced a new tax credit for eligible personal support workers (PSWs). PSWs are healthcare professionals who provide essential care and support, assisting individuals with the activities of daily\u00a0living.<\/p>\n

PSWs do critical work, and they deserve fair compensation for it. This tax credit is a step in the right direction. It will provide eligible members with some relief, but it\u2019s only temporary, and not a proper substitute for living\u00a0wages.<\/p>\n

CUPE will continue pushing to get real, permanent wage increases for PSWs \u2013 but in the meantime, here\u2019s what we know about the new tax\u00a0credit.<\/p>\n

How does it\u00a0work?<\/p>\n

The credit is temporary, it will be available for 5 years, from 2025 to\u00a02030.
\nEligible workers can claim up to 5% of their eligible earnings, to a max of $1,100 per\u00a0year.
\nIt\u2019s a refundable tax credit \u2013 so you can still get the money even if you don\u2019t owe anything when you file your\u00a0taxes.
\nYour employer must confirm your eligibility and how much you can claim. They\u2019ll do this by submitting a specific form to the Canada Revenue Agency\u00a0(CRA).
\nIf you have more than one employer, you\u2019ll need each of them to confirm how much you can claim.
\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who is\u00a0eligible?<\/p>\n

According to the budget, you\u00a0must:<\/p>\n

Be a health care worker who \u201cordinarily provides one-on-one care and essential support to optimise and maintain another individual\u2019s health, well-being, safety, autonomy, and\u00a0comfort\u201d.
\nProvide care as \u201cas directed by a regulated health care professional or a provincial community health\u00a0organization\u201d.
\nHave main duties that include \u201chelping patients with activities of daily living and\u00a0mobilization\u201d.
\nWork for a hospital, nursing or residential care facility, community care facility for the elderly, a home health care establishment, or \u201cother similar regulated health care\u00a0establishments\u201d.
\nHave filed your\u00a0taxes.<\/p>\n

However, you are not eligible if you\u2019re working in BC, Newfoundland and Labrador, or the Northwest Territories. Those three jurisdictions signed a different agreement with the government to increase PSW\u00a0wages.<\/p>\n

Does it count if I have the same\/a similar job with a different\u00a0title?<\/p>\n

Yes, if you meet the other criteria above. As long as your job duties meet the definition provided, and your employer confirms your eligible earnings, you should be able to claim this\u00a0credit.<\/p>\n

The government has included \u201crelated professions\u201d in their deals with BC and Newfoundland and Labrador, which outlined support for Health Care Assistants (HCAs) and Home Support Workers\u00a0(HSWs).<\/p>\n

Statistics Canada and other agencies also classify jobs like HCAs and Continuing Care Assistants (CCAs) together in the same\u00a0unit.<\/p>\n

What are \u201celigible\u00a0earnings\u201d?<\/p>\n

Taxable employment income (wages, salaries, benefits, overtime pay, shift premiums, etc.) earned working at an eligible health care establishment, certified by your\u00a0employer.
\nAlso includes taxable benefits specifically related to your employment as a PSW, and any similar tax-exempt income you may have earned on a\u00a0reserve.
\nYou cannot count any income you made from:<\/p>\n

non-PSW\u00a0jobs
\nunregulated\u00a0facilities
\nprivate, cash-based care without a \u201cproper employment\u00a0structure\u201d
\nself-employment that\u2019s not tied to regulated PSW\u00a0duties
\nworking as a PSW or related occupation in BC, Newfoundland and Labrador, or the Northwest\u00a0Territories<\/p>\n

Quick math: if you made $18,000 in eligible earnings, you could receive a $900 tax credit; if you made $22,000 or more, you could receive the maximum of\u00a0$1,100.<\/p>\n

Why aren\u2019t people in BC, NL, or NWT\u00a0eligible?<\/p>\n

These three regions have already signed agreements with the federal government to receive funding to increase the wages of designated personal support workers, based on an announcement in Budget\u00a02023.<\/p>\n

The federal government allocated $1.48 billion for the tax credit in Budget 2025 \u2013 but most of this money was pulled from the funds that had been set aside in Budget 2023. \u00a0Since most of the provinces and territories didn\u2019t sign an agreement to increase PSW wages, most of the money allocated in Budget 2023 went\u00a0unspent.<\/p>\n

This tax credit is a way for the federal government to temporarily boost incomes for personal support workers without having to negotiate an agreement with the applicable region. It means that eligible workers in most of Canada will receive the temporary tax credit instead of the permanent wage increases that were negotiated by BC, NL, and\u00a0NWT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government just announced a new tax credit for eligible personal support workers (PSWs). PSWs are healthcare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-320088","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}