# Me and my GF claimed comon law on our taxes....now I owe money



## Cartel (May 8, 2015)

*DELETE THREAD*

DELETE THREAD


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

My son received the same letter for an amount of 180.05

It looks like when you filed your taxes in April 2015 for the 2014 tax year, you were ineligible to each collect a GST cheque because you were living together in 2014, and now the CRA wants the money back.

I think it is unintended consequences of filing common law status to claim the Family Tax Credit. Both your incomes are now combined.

My son's girlfriend also lost all the Child Tax Credits except for the basic $100 a month, due to the combined income.

Once you claim common law status your income is combined for tax purposes.............even if you don't combine your income together.

I wonder how many other people will receive significantly less GST and Child Benefits due to claiming the Family Tax Credit.


----------



## stardancer (Apr 26, 2009)

Although c/l for income tax purposes starts the month after 12 months cohabitation, the same is not true for GST/HST credits, Child Benefits and the Ontario Trillium Benefit. These benefits are based on combined income even if you have not yet declared c/l status. Unfortunately, people don't know this and when they do declare c/l, they get a bill for back payments.


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

According to the letter, the GST was paid to one of you for the time period of January 2015 to April 2015.

The CRA has determined that your combined income means you shouldn't have received a payment of 176

If neither of you received a GST cheque for the time period of January to April 2015..........you should call them.


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

A side effect of the Family Tax Credit is that people enticed to claim the credit would have revealed they were living common law, and hadn't notified the CRA.

In some cases, people wouldn't realize that by claiming the FTC they were also going to lose the GST and Child Benefits.

My son and his girlfriend did it the proper way, but they lost significant benefits by moving in together and since she has very little income and now loses the Child Benefits........she has to rely on my son for money.

She is considering moving back home if she doesn't soon find a job, to restart the benefits in 3 months. 

I think this is what Justin Trudeau's proposals are meant to address. He proposes changes to the level of combined income that is allowed.


----------



## Charlie (May 20, 2011)

It has nothing to do with the family tax credit...given what you've posted, I doubt you benefited from it.

It was twigged by claiming her as a dependent. I guess her income is minimal?

The common law rules have been in place for a long time. You may have benefited by getting a spousal deduction for her, but you lose the GST credits which are based on family income. Because of the timing of the benefits it results in a retro adjustment, which is harder to stomach...but it's nothing new. They do match addresses somehow...not sure how they differentiate roommates vs couples....but in your case, given you claimed her as a dependent, it does seem to make sense that your benefit entitlements are based on family income. Can't have it both ways.


----------



## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

Eligibility for the GST credit for July 2014 to June 2015 is based on your 2013 income, and you relationship status for July 2014 to June 2015. So even if your girlfriend's 2013 income was low enough to qualify for the GST credit as a single person, the fact is that she was not single for the July 2014 to June 2015 period, so she is not entitled to GST credits for that period. You are supporting her, so other taxpayers shouldn't have to.


----------



## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

According to my calculations, by claiming your girlfriend as a dependent with 0 income, you got a $1670 federal non-refundable tax credit, plus a provincial non-refundable tax credit of some amount ($456 if you live in Ontario). if you were too poor to pay any taxes last year, I guess you might be out of pocket for the clawback of the GST credit. But otherwise you should still be money ahead.


----------



## Charlie (May 20, 2011)

thanks for dropping by Cartel.

I see you had your question answered, so you deleted all your posts.

Lovely.


----------



## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

Sheesh. Didn't like the answer so takes his ball and storms off the field. Hope the guy doesn't want to have children - his girlfriend has enough on her hands dealing with this one.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

even with the lacework puncture deletions, the thread still has value imho. It's possible to see - through the web of lace - the underlying situation & there are some top-of-the-line answers here, coming from expert posters to the now-missing situation.

in its own quirky way, the lacework makes this thread more lively, therefore more valuable. It's a kind of sticky for young couples who are early in living-together mode, it helps them consider more carefully all their options in claiming benefits & filing tax returns.

here & there in cmf, there are other wise threads on another trouble spot that can beset common-law partners in the event they should split up. These other threads address the issue of what happens to ownership of the house when the dwelling was pre-owned by one of the partners. Different provinces vary in their treatment of this issue.

altogether, the disappearance of the OP only adds lustre to the helpfulness of the answers here imho. Another illustration of how part - but only part - of cmf forum stays Edgy.


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

This thread illustrates the old question.

Do you do it the legal way..........and lose. .........or the illegal way...........and gain.

It seems to me that government benefits would be better calculated on an individual basis, rather than family incomes.

It isn't required after all............for one partner to evenly share their income with the other.

In fact, many people have no co-mingling of their money at all.


----------



## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

The GST cheques are for July 2014-June 2015, the period during which they are issued, which is when you are in a common law relationship. They are based on your 2013 income, because that is the only income information the government has for you at the beginning of the period. If you were to split up in June 2015, then she could get the creditas a single person for July 2015-June 2016, when she would need it, rather than having to wait another year for it.

You can disagree with the policy, but it does make sense. Everyone loves getting cheques from the government, but the money has to come from somewhere, and that means other taxpayers.

With respect to humble pie's comment about couples considering their options, as sags indicated, there is no option here. Either you are in a common law relationship or you aren't. It isn't a choice. I guess commiting fraud by filing false information on a tax return is technically an option, but it really isn't one we need to spend too much time on.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

Davis said:


> With respect to humble pie's comment about couples considering their options, as sags indicated, there is no option here. Either you are in a common law relationship or you aren't. It isn't a choice.




what i said was not only *couples* in the plural sense but i also specified *young couples who are early in living-together mode,* ie prior to gaining common-law status.

this is a gigantic cohort in every province. Early on, all of these couples do have choices. They can even elect not to live together. Just upthread you will see a post that describes a situation where a young mother living common law is considering moving back to her parents' residence in order to be able to claim child benefits, which she had lost under common law.

please don't put words in my mouth. I'm sticking to my pov, which was addressed not to Cartel who had already deleted all his posts & disappeared, but to couples-at-large. My pov says that this thread is an excellent reminder that common-law status for many young persons should be approached as a financial decision as well as a romantic decision. 

early on, there are always options. Threads like this one help to warn young madly-in-loves about some of the practical issues that await them.

possible partition of a shared common-law dwelling if a childless common-law couple should split up is another thorny issue that should be tackled early on by pairs planning to co-habit ...


----------



## sags (May 15, 2010)

It is a pretty sad state of affairs, when it is more advantageous for a couple to break up than live together.

Government benefits of all kinds are a complicated mess.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

sags said:


> It is a pretty sad state of affairs, when it is more advantageous for a couple to break up than live together.
> 
> Government benefits of all kinds are a complicated mess.




agree, it's not right that a young mother should be harmed in this manner. 

of course she wants to move on with her life, live where & with whom she chooses. That the gummint tax rules lead to the strait jacket effect of locking her up in the parents' residence once again is outrageous.

sags can u volunteer to monitor the trudeau family proposal & see how it could offer more benefits to young families, especially those living on lower incomes?

now, more than ever, it's the early childhood environment we should be protecting & encouraging. Universal child benefits should neither be limited nor subject to cancellation save for the uber-uber-rich, imho. Pre-natal & neo-natal health care, day care & very early childhood education should be national priorities, imho.

tax credits for enrolling kids in organized sports was a win/win initiative, we should go more in that direction.

imho there's a flavour of rich-early-retirement in cmf forum, this tone might be intimidating to young people who plain Need Jobs & often they Need Additional Training. Sometimes when they have young children like cartel's partner, they Need Child Support as well. 

imho the young should be our national priorities, not hair-splitting over whether a child benefit should be cancelled because she's moved on in life with a new partner.

if i recall history correctly, wasn't it the CCF (saskatchewan forerunner of the NDP) that launched universal child support benefits payable to mothers only? there were no ifs, buts or conditions, the money was to be given to all the mothers in outright ownership?

didn't the NDP force the liberal party in power to legislate this as national policy? wasn't it an early example of how the new democrats used vote leverage in ottawa to force progressive new policies?

wasn't canada the first country in the world to ever single out mothers as sole recipients? possibly JT is looking to return the liberal party to its family support roots, this would be a healthy move imho.


----------



## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

Humble pie: easy there. I wasn't attacking you or putting words into your mouth. I think clarity is essential here, especially when we're providing information to people who are not familiar with the tax and benefits systems. You wrote: "It's a kind of sticky for young couples who are early in living-together mode, it helps them consider more carefully all their options in claiming benefits & filing tax returns." I assumed, and I think many people would, that the options you were referring to were about claiming benefits and filing tax returns. I understand now that you were referring to options in living together or not living together. Thank you for the clarification. I agere with you that couples considering living together should consider all of the financial implications, including impact on benefits.

The phase-out for the GST credit for a couple starts at $35,465.00 for the 2015-16 benefit year, which is based on 2014 income. I suspect that the original poster is not giving us accurate information, or has made some other mistake when he tells us that they are facing a clawback at $15,000 of income.

On the policy matter, I don't think that providing benefits to low-income partners of higher-income people is an important social policy goal now especially when there is so much more to be done to provide benefits to low-income families who need the support. I don't have a problem saying that common-law or married couples should be expected to support each other financially. When my partner was laid off, there was no question in my mind that I would support him financially if he needed it even though the law at the time prohibited us from getting married. 

Universal benefits are wonderful, but someone has to pay for them, and our governments are still dealing with deficits. I don't agree with providing generous benefits and sticking our generation's children and grandchildren with the bill by borrowing the money.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

.
thankx very much for the additional info Davis.

i did say "early living-together mode" & idk how i could have been more clear than that. I don't think it's correct to assume that *everyone* read my sentence the same way you did!. franchement i doubt anybody else read my post anyhow, after all who'd listen to a dumb crumb.

i do feel, as you do, that something seems to be askew with cartel's figures. $15k in income should mean no taxes plus low forfeitures. But one thing i've learned with my own teens & young adults is that when they announce they're pissed, indeed they are truly & royally p.i.s.s.e.d. It can cause them to speak a lot of hot air.

however, not for one minute did i believe that cartel's case was a situation of a low-income partner (the young lady) living with a high-income partner (himself.) I got the sense that the couple's joint budget was tight & every single loss was hurtful. I'm also mindful that, of late, the forum has become somewhat effulgent with with rich retirement attestations, so i appreciate that it can be intimidating for a young & financially challenged person to scrape up the courage to even seek discussion on here.

in the past - before everybody in cmf got so rich - there would be low-income visitors who were enormously helped here. It was always so nice to see this happening.

the quote below is interesting. I'm sure you mean well, but what you seem to be saying is that middle & high incomes can stay tranquilly married because they're able to support each other, but low incomes must either stay single or else be punished for marrying?

i mean, do we really want to banish low income youth into a bantustan of 2nd class citizens with few or limited rights?



Davis said:


> ... I don't have a problem saying that common-law or married couples should be expected to support each other financially. When my partner was laid off, there was no question in my mind that I would support him financially if he needed it even though the law at the time prohibited us from getting married



here's another quote that i believe is misaligned.



> Universal benefits are wonderful, but someone has to pay for them, and our governments are still dealing with deficits. I don't agree with providing generous benefits and sticking our generation's children and grandchildren with the bill by borrowing the money.


one can never pretend that providing adequate social support for infants, children & youth automatically equates to crippling public debt for future generations. The $$ for adequate youth support can be taken from other parts of the budget now.

Davis i like you & i don't mean to antagonize you ... but one of the places $$ could easily be adjusted from the budget to support the youth services which the nation dearly needs would be stopping ... yes ... stopping ... stopping the granting ... of those elaborate pension rights ... to civil servants ... each:


----------



## Guban (Jul 5, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> .
> I'm also mindful that, of late, the forum has become somewhat effulgent with with rich retirement attestations,
> 
> in the past - before everybody in cmf got so rich - there would be low-income visitors who were enormously helped here.


Wow, from the correlation = causation camp ...

Those that post for help on the CMF become rich!


----------



## Charlie (May 20, 2011)

thanks for reinstating your posts Cartel. 

If your income was only $15K I don't think you've lost anything. Instead of each of you getting the GST and BCCATC, one of you will get twice the amount (for self and spouse). Your family income is below the clawback thresholds for both credits. 

The timing and payment going to one person, however, means you have to pay back some....which is a hardship to someone on low income...but you should have had a boost to the other's cheque.


----------



## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

humble_pie said:


> however, not for one minute did i believe that cartel's case was a situation of a low-income partner (the young lady) living with a high-income partner (himself.) I got the sense that the couple's joint budget was tight & every single loss was hurtful. I'm also mindful that, of late, the forum has become somewhat effulgent with with rich retirement attestations, so i appreciate that it can be intimidating for a young & financially challenged person to scrape up the courage to even seek discussion on here.
> in the past - before everybody in cmf got so rich - there would be low-income visitors who were enormously helped here. It was always so nice to see this happening.


In addition to getting a full GST credit with net income up to $35,465, a couple with no children would get at least a partial GST credit with net income up to $46,345. (A couple with two children would get a partial credit with net income up to $52,065.) I understand that they may feel that their income is very tight, but these are not poverty income levels. I suspect it is either (a) a mistake on the OP's part, or (b) a sense of being entitled to their entitlements (and they aren't even Senators!) 

I agree with you that CMF could be an intimidating place for low income people. In my comments to the OP, I was trying to be helpful, but I was a bit ticked off at his outrage at not getting handouts. 



humble_pie said:


> the quote below is interesting. I'm sure you mean well, but what you seem to be saying is that middle & high incomes can stay tranquilly married because they're able to support each other, but low incomes must either stay single or else be punished for marrying? i mean, do we really want to banish low income youth into a bantustan of 2nd class citizens with few or limited rights?


I think that are benefits are appropriately set to reflect the reality that couples do support each other. I don't think it is unreasonable for other taxpayers to expect that they do so. THe income levels as noted above are hardly bantustan levels. I don't get these credits either, and I don't feel like a second class citizen How far do you want to go in paying benefits to spouses and partners? Should the proverbial banker's wife get GST credits?



humble_pie said:


> one can never pretend that providing adequate social support for infants, children & youth automatically equates to crippling public debt for future generations. The $$ for adequate youth support can be taken from other parts of the budget now. Davis i like you & i don't mean to antagonize you ... but one of the places $$ could easily be adjusted from the budget to support the youth services which the nation dearly needs would be stopping ... yes ... stopping ... stopping the granting ... of those elaborate pension rights ... to civil servants ... each:


So I've accumulated almost 25 years of pension benefits from federal and provincial plans (aside from the time I spent in the private sector). Half of the contributions came off my paycheque and out of my pocket. The other half were paid by my employers (governments) as a condition of my employment. Do you propose to confiscate my contributions, and retroactively change the terms of my employment by taking away the employers' contributions? That would be simply illegal under common law. And there is no justification for it since my pension plan is adequately funded, so it will not need a bailout to meet its obligations. 

I think we should stop cutting taxes for the rich and stop paying such generous benefits to higher income seniors. Oh, and I would cut Harper's partisan advertising budget, shut down the Senate (I know that is a token amount, but these things add up), and so on, but I would still target the additional funds to families and single people in genuine need, and not to people who have partners who can support them.


----------



## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

Davis said:


> In addition to getting a full GST credit with net income up to $35,465, a couple with no children would get at least a partial GST credit with net income up to $46,345. (A couple with two children would get a partial credit with net income up to $52,065.) I understand that they may feel that their income is very tight, but these are not poverty income levels. I suspect it is either (a) a mistake on the OP's part, or (b) a sense of being entitled to their entitlements (and they aren't even Senators!)




i didn't see any indication that cartel's family income was anything like 35k or 46k or 52k though?

what he said was that he & partner "live on $15,000 a year." Would you be imputing that his income must have been in the 35k-52k range? this could very well be accurate, i just don't know.

evidently his income was low enough that he himself was eligible for GST rebates until the famous filing of the common law tax return for 2014. His assessment is posted in this thread. It recites that he's being billed to claim back GST paid to him during 2015, for the reason that a spouse/common law partner had already claimed the rebate & only one person in a family can claim.

a complicating issue in this thread is that it has wandered! another poster introduced the loss of child benefits when a low income mother lives with a higher income partner. This is not precisely the same issue as GST rebates for low income youth, although it is broadly related.

then i took up the universal child benefiits mantra, because i'm deeply interested in support for the earliest years of childhood - from perinatal to grade school. Age less than zero to about 5 years (includes prenatal health care.)

those are the years when the bedrock of personality is built. How to socialize, how to love, how to recognize & get along with others. How to become the future citizen. They say the brain will never again grow as fast as it does from conception through the earliest years.

unfortunately, this earliest period of life is still neglected by educators & politicians. Some folks here in cmf forum grew up on sesame street, the war on poverty was introduced more than half a century ago, but in spite of these forward steps most politicians & citizens have yet to get the memo that young kids matter, their environment matters, a lot.

(back on topic) re the OP's objection to his GST repayment assessment), in post #13 upthread i did try to compliment all the parties - including of course Davis - who had posted so much helpful information, so many pertinent facts.

re Cartel's deletion & subsequent restoration of his posts, did anyone think this might been because of the young lady? she might have been distressed at seeing the circumstances of their life together splashed all over the internet? i know my own early-20-something daughter would be distressed ...

i still think the value of a thread like this is to publicize, in its own small way, what kind of practical consequences await young people, who often fly into co-locataire in a kind of rose-tinted mist ... youth being what it is ... a time of highly impulsive behaviour ... each:


----------



## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

humble_pie said:


> i didn't see any indication that cartel's family income was anything like 35k or 46k or 52k though?
> 
> what he said was that he & partner "live on $15,000 a year." Would you be imputing that his income must have been in the 35k-52k range? this could very well be accurate, i just don't know.


That is often the problem with queries such as these. There may be other details that have been left out that would explain what happened. I don't think we have enough information. The conclusion that the GST credit was clawed back because of income is clearly incorrect if the couple's income actually is $15,000. Did they somehow get double payments? I just don't know either. I think the OP will have to take it up with CRA to get the answer.

I agree, humble pie, that this has been a useful and educational discussion for young couples. regards.


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

Having read this thread this morning for the first time, CMF could probably have (maybe already has) a thread debating the merits (or not) of government benefit programs being based on individual vs family incomes. IMO, there is an inequity (patchwork?) approach to how this is done. Some programs are based on family income, e.g. GST/HST credit, while others, particularly for seniors, e.g. OAS and age credit, are based on individual incomes. IMO, it is almost criminal for OAS and Age Credit, to be based on individual vs family incomes, e.g. how can a couple potentially earning circa $150k be 'entitled' to social welfare (OAS) without clawback? As a senior myself, I am embarassed. The ITA needs an overhaul to minimize inequities across the age test/means test spectrum.

FWIW, I believe in family incomes being the test for benefit programs. A family of 2 (or more) cohabitating can live way more cheaply on a per person basis than individuals by themselves. Rent/house payments along (taking up more than 30% of income) is the prime example. Then there are utilities and property taxes in addition to that. Food for co-habitating adults on a per person basis is less than that for each individual alone. On and on it goes. If the cost-of-living problem is 'loss of certain benefits' due to co-habitating adults, then the problem really is the unrealistic low thresholds at which the benefits are clawed back OR it is the lack of the appropriate social safety net. GIS is another pet peeve of mine. Why is it limited to a certain demographic?


----------



## peterk (May 16, 2010)

AltaRed said:


> , e.g. how can a couple potentially earning circa $150k be 'entitled' to social welfare (OAS) without clawback? As a senior myself, I am embarassed.


It's nice to hear that there is at least 1 senior out there that finds this outrageous.  You are in the minority, to be sure.


----------



## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

Cartel said:


> ...
> 
> 2.) I'm claiming her, she has no income yet they issue her the cheques for now on, which is a pain in the a** because she has no bank account and now my direct deposit is useless and we will take a loss cashing it at moneymart. I guess she has insufficient ID to go to a bank.
> ...


It isn't the government's fault that she doesn't have a bank account. If she's old enough to file an income tax return she should have a bank account, even if it is only a joint account with you. Banks quit cashing cheques for "walk-in strangers" a long time ago (if they ever did), no matter how much ID they have. Tell her to get an account instead of wasting your money at MoneyMart.


----------



## AltaRed (Jun 8, 2009)

peterk said:


> It's nice to hear that there is at least 1 senior out there that finds this outrageous.  You are in the minority, to be sure.


There are quite a few of us. Many seniors with a conscience realize their benefits are over-the-top. Others believe they are entitlements no matter what and think the world owes them after contributing to the system for a full working life.


----------



## none (Jan 15, 2013)

I hope that those that accept the benefits but consider them over the top then pass it along to a charity or something. That's what I do with some government benefits that I receive now that I consider are a bt over the top. #feelsgoodman


----------

