The Yukon government will be amending the Income Tax Act to create a tax credit for families seeking fertility care.
The change was announced in a press release on March 11.
Previously, families would have to pay all costs for surrogacy and in vitro fertilization (IVF) - including medications, clinic fees and more - out of pocket. If passed, the tax credit will cover 40 per cent of costs incurred up to $10,000 a year, with unlimited lifetime availability.
Eric Clement, a spokesperson for the Yukon department of finance told the News that Yukoners will be able to apply for the credit on their 2025 tax returns, which are supposed to be filed in 2026.
They can claim any medical expenses required to conceive a child incurred after Jan. 2, 2024, said Clement.
“The most common expenses will likely be for in-vitro fertilization. Other expenses can include things like egg extraction, freezing of sperm, etc.,” Clement said in an email to the News on March 12. “Additionally, expenses related to surrogacy are also included in this tax credit.”
The tax credit was a point of the confidence and supply agreement between the Yukon Liberals and Yukon NDP. Adding fertility care to medical travel coverage was also a point of the agreement, which was launched last October.
At that time, the News spoke to multiple parents and families who had sought or were actively seeking fertility care. Among them was April Mikkelsen.
Mikkelsen, a mother of two children conceived via IVF, said the journey was rough. She had told the News that she and her partner spent between $26,000 and $28,000 for the treatment she received in B.C. as well as travel and accommodations.
“For us, it was our last ditch. If it didn't work, we had made the decision that we were going to have a child-free life,” said Mikkelsen. “And it did work.”
Each procedure alone cost around $2,000, said Mikkelsen. She said the expenses are even more painful, as they are spent with the plan to go off of work for maternity leave in a year.
Sandra Milliken, another woman who spoke to the News in October, said families could pay up to $21,000 for a single cycle of IVF from egg retrieval to embryo transplant, with medication costs included.
Having worked as a nurse in a fertility clinic, Milliken said it would cost families an additional $5,000 to get genetic screening, and $400 to $800 annually for storage.
Milliken received a discount for working at the fertility clinic — and still had to pay $4,000 out of pocket.
Kate White, the leader of the Yukon NDP, said that she was happy to see the tax credit in place.
White also said she was happy to see that the credit had been increased to $10,000 per year. Initially, the confidence and supply agreement promised a tax credit of $8,000 annually.
Depending on the uptake of the program, said White, the tax credit amount may be able to raised even higher.
She said she had wanted the program to replicate the tax credit for fertility care available in Manitoba, which increased from $8,000 a year to $16,000 a year in 2024.
“But 10,000 is better than 8,000,” she said. “10,000 is certainly better than nothing.”
Mikkelsen told the News that the process of getting fertility care like IVF can be heart-wrenching, physically draining and emotional.
“Now that I have my kids, I look back and I realize that if, if it had worked the natural way, if the fertility drugs had worked, if we hadn’t gone IVF, we wouldn't have these kids,” said Mikkelsen of her two children.
“I'm sure we have these other wonderful kids that would, you know, I'm sure we'd love them and like them and all of that. But the fact is that these are the kids we were meant to have.”
Contact Talar Stockton at talar.stockton@yukon-news.com
