Taxes and the foreign spouse

If you are living in a common-law relationship or are married then yes you can have your spouse as a dependent but only if they live with you.
If not, there is an alternate, you can have, if you have one, a child who you put down instead. I am not 100% sure how this works, my fiance is an accountant and deals with it, but she had her 12 year old son on her tax return.

I claimed my spouse while she was still living overseas. I had no problems.

I claimed my Chinese spouse.  We got married in Jan 2008 and she arrived in Canada in Nov 2008.  When I filed my taxes I put the date of our marriage in Jan 2008.  I talked to CRA and was told that since I was married and supporting her, sending her money, I could claim her.  I was told to keep all the proof of support, Western Union, PayPal etc money transfer reciepts.  It got me a great refund as I used all of her tax credits.  She had her SIN number by the time I filed my taxes.  She actually got it in Jan 2009.  I have heard you do not need a SIN to claim an overseas spouse, but need another number.  I would call CRA.  They were very helpful and told me that they see this siutation more then you would think.  My wife just got her tax return a week ago.

Talion, I honestly can not remember.  I found it in the previous forum.  It was a number that you could get if your wife did not have a SIN.

Check out this web page.  It has a discussion about this topic and a link to the CRA.

http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/taxes-married-abroad-non-canadian-2009-how-file-tax-return-842309/




Edited by chipsfan7mary4 - 28 Jan 2010 at 10:37am

OK, so it looks like claiming my wife for tax purposes is no problem. I spoke to CRA and got some clarifications on the issue. As far as they are concerned, her income in Canada is zero. They will ask what he income in her home country is, and how much was sent to her. The country that a person lives in will dictate how much is necessary to constitute support. The guy there told me that they will never give you a straight answer on the amount per country, but basically in consulting their table most anything over $2-3000 will be enough to be considered support in most third world countries. The amounts will be higher in Europe and in some other scattered countries.

The spouse does not need to have a SIN number, for tax purposes, as long as you are not claiming benefits or GST. The claiming of these things is what prompts further investigation into your spouse, as they don't know who she is internally without it, and they need to qualify her income and yours to determine eligibility for the GST. If they don't have to qualify you for anything then there's no problem.

If you are filing electronically you don't have to provide the backup, although you are expected to have it handy if requested. The backup will have to indicate that the funds were going to your spouse (band draft, wire transfer slips etc)

If you qualify for the amount then you get the whole thing, $10,320.00 Federally on the Schedule 1, minus her income in her native country, converted to Canadian dollars, regardless of what you sent, whether it's less or not. This will be your federal tax credit. If you are not considered to be supporting the spouse then you get nothing, regardless of what you sent down. fortunately the threshold appears to be low. The same thing will happen at a provincial level, with whatever base amount your province offers.

There's an external interpretation of this section of the guide, the IT-513R form, which the agent directed me to, right here:
CRA taxation link

Hope that helps!

Edited by talion - 29 Jan 2010 at 6:57pm