Line 23200 is the catch-all. It takes the allowable amounts not deducted anywhere else on your return, and you specify the deduction you are claiming in the space provided on the return.
Because it is a catch-all, it holds several unrelated things. Only some of them are supported by a document you hold yourself.
What you can claim
The CRA groups the Other deductions on this line into three:
- Repayment of amounts included in income — money you received, reported as income, and later paid back
- Legal fees
- Other deductible amounts
Repayments cover a wide range: employment insurance benefits you repaid directly to the payer (shown in box 30 of your T4E slip), scholarships, fellowships, bursaries and artists' project grants, an amount recovered from your gross old age security pension, amounts you repaid from the Canada Pension Plan, the Quebec Pension Plan, a registered pension plan or a pooled registered pension plan, amounts repaid from a registered disability savings plan or a registered education savings plan, a gain from a life insurance policy loan, a shareholder's loan, and a retiring allowance or research grant you paid back.
Legal fees you can claim are:
- fees, including any related accounting fees, that you paid for advice or assistance to respond to the CRA when it reviewed your income, deductions, or credits for a year
- fees to object to or appeal an assessment or decision under the Income Tax Act, the Employment Insurance Act, the Canada Pension Plan, or the Quebec Pension Plan
- fees you paid to collect, or establish a right to, a retiring allowance or pension benefit
- certain fees you incurred to try to make child support payments non-taxable
The retiring allowance and pension category has a ceiling: you can claim only up to the retiring allowance or pension income you received in the year, minus any part of it transferred to an RRSP or RPP. You can carry forward legal fees you cannot claim in the year for up to seven years.
Other deductible amounts include income subject to tax on split income (Form T1206), certain unused RRSP, pooled registered pension plan, or specified pension plan contributions that were refunded to you, the excess part of a direct transfer of a lump sum from a registered pension plan that you withdrew (Form T1043), amounts you rolled over to a registered disability savings plan, and security released from a first home savings account.
Legal fees that belong somewhere else
This is where the mix-ups happen, and each exclusion has a destination.
Legal fees relating to support payments that your current or former spouse or common-law partner, or the natural parent of your child, paid to you must be claimed on line 22100, not here.
Legal fees to separate or divorce, or to establish custody of or visitation arrangements for a child, cannot be claimed at all.
Legal fees you paid to collect or establish a right to salary or wages owed to you belong on line 22900.
Support payments you repaid under a court order go on line 22000, not on this line, even though other repayments of reported income do come here.
You must also reduce your claim by any award or reimbursement you received for these expenses. If you are awarded the cost of your deductible legal fees in a future year, report that amount as income for that year.
Repayments that look like this line but are not
If you had old age security recovery tax withheld from your benefits, the amount deducted is shown in box 22 of your T4A(OAS) slip. Do not claim that amount on line 23200. It is handled through the chart for line 23500 of your Federal Worksheet, and the box 22 amount goes on line 43700 of your return.
If you repaid employment income, see line 22900. If you repaid interest earned on an income tax refund, see line 22100.
COVID-19 benefit repayments
Federal and provincial or territorial COVID-19 benefit amounts repaid in 2024 or 2025 can be claimed as a deduction on line 23200 of your 2024 or 2025 return, respectively. For COVID-19 benefit amounts received and repaid before 2024, the applicable prior-year federal and provincial or territorial tax information sets out how they are handled.
What your document must show
Most of what lands on this line arrives on a slip or is worked out on a form. The part that reaches you as an ordinary invoice is the legal and accounting fee. Neither the CRA's line page nor the sources behind it enumerate the fields such an invoice has to carry, so what the claim rests on is:
- the payee — the firm you paid
- the amount of fees
- the nature of the service, because whether the fee is claimable here, on line 22100, on line 22900, or not at all depends entirely on what the lawyer was doing
That last field is the one to check before the invoice is filed away. "For professional services rendered" tells you nothing a year later.
Forms that go with the claim
- To claim deductions, losses, or credits from tax shelter investments, see your T5003 or T5013 slips and complete Form T5004, Claim for Tax Shelter Loss or Deduction.
- For a rollover to a registered disability savings plan, attach Form RC4625 or a letter from the plan issuer to your paper return.
- For refunded unused RRSP, pooled registered pension plan, or specified pension plan contributions, attach an approved Form T3012A or a completed Form T746 to your paper return.
- If you are claiming more than one type of deduction, deducting more than one amount, or explaining your deductions in more detail, attach a note to your paper return.
What to keep
Keep the invoice for any legal or accounting fees you claim, with the description of the work intact. Keep the slips behind any repayment you claim, and keep the completed forms — T5004, T1206, T746, T3012A, T1043, RC4625 — with them.
Because line 23200 can hold several claims at once, keep them grouped by what each one is: the note you attach to a paper return has to say which deduction is which, and that is much easier with the documents sorted.
Dossier tags a legal or accounting invoice as it arrives and files it under the tax year, so the description of the service is still in front of you when the line has to be split between 22100, 22900, and here.
Official CRA sources
Source: Canada Revenue Agency (canada.ca). Not tax advice.