The following tips will help you maximize your claim for employment expenses and allowable deductions:

1.Travel between head office and home. If your employer allows you to keep an office in your home, but also requires that you travel to head office on business, related travel-expense allowances have been ruled by the courts as being exempt from taxation.

2. Commissions can be deducted. Commissioned life insurance salespeople are allowed to deduct commissions earned if they purchase their own policies.

3. Storage space. Don't forget to include business-storage space in the basement and elsewhere, when determining the proportion of your home used for commercial purposes.

4. Flexible employee benefit programs allow you to custom-design your own package of health and other benefits. A taxable benefit can result if you accumulate flex credits and those benefits are received in cash which is then considered to be taxable income.

5. Interest expenses. Don't forget that interest expense may include elements of both simple and compound interest.

6. Legal fees. Legal fees incurred in a termination case do not necessarily have to be paid to a lawyer in order to be deductible. Fees paid to another professional, such as a labour-relations consultant retained to negotiate a severance package, may also be deductible.

7. Gifts/awards from your employer. Employees are allowed to receive two non-cash gifts or awards (total value $500) from their employer in a year. If you received four awards that cost $300, $200, $150 and $100 respectively, select the first two awards as your entitlement as these will be non-taxable. Declare the $250 cost of the remaining two as a taxable benefit.

8. Air miles. If you use air miles earned from an incentive program for personal use, you will be deemed to have received a taxable benefit if those points were earned as a result of expenditures paid for by your employer. Use such air miles strictly for business purposes on behalf of your employer.

9. Fitness club memberships. If your employer makes arrangements to purchase discounted fitness-pass memberships from a third party for employees, it is not considered a taxable benefit.

10. Self-employment expenses must be documented. Don't take a chance and have what would be a legitimate business expense disallowed because of poor or non-existent documentation. Be sure to keep all your receipts and properly document time and monies spent to earn income.

Source: 2008/2009 Personal Tax Planning Guide