Marital Status change - 1 year later

[AD01]

Hello all,

Me and my girlfriend have been living together for more than 3 years now and we finally decided to apply for Common-law sponsorship. Our effective common law date is Jan 1, 2020. We want to change the status in the CRA account however we filed our taxes already for the past year saying we are single. Is that fine or will it affect our application? Please let me know!

Thanks!

 

[scylla]

Hello all,

Me and my girlfriend have been living together for more than 3 years now and we finally decided to apply for Common-law sponsorship. Our effective common law date is Jan 1, 2020. We want to change the status in the CRA account however we filed our taxes already for the past year saying we are single. Is that fine or will it affect our application? Please let me know!

Thanks!

Refile your taxes as common law for last year. IRCC will sometimes look at CRA status as evidence.

 

[canuck78]

In addition to IRCC looking at your NOAs, you also need to refile because you filed your taxes incorrectly and likely received the wrong amount of tax credits/benefits

 

[AD01]

In addition to IRCC looking at your NOAs, you also need to refile because you filed your taxes incorrectly and likely received the wrong amount of tax credits/benefits

Thanks for the reply. Really appreciated.

I spoke to the CRA regarding this. They said there's no need to refile your taxes. However, one of us (me or my common law partner) will have to return the GST/HST benefits received in last year.

 

[AD01]

Refile your taxes as common law for last year. IRCC will sometimes look at CRA status as evidence.

Thank you!

 

[canuck78]

Thanks for the reply. Really appreciated.

I spoke to the CRA regarding this. They said there's no need to refile your taxes. However, one of us (me or my common law partner) will have to return the GST/HST benefits received in last year.

So essentially you are both refilling up to 3 tax returns because you need to check the box off for common law not single and then one of you have to return GST/HST benefit. Unless they had another way for you to change your status to common law for the past 2-3 tax filings.

 

[AD01]

So essentially you are both refilling up to 3 tax returns because you need to check the box off for common law not single and then one of you have to return GST/HST benefit. Unless they had another way for you to change your status to common law for the past 2-3 tax filings.

No. Our effective common-law date is January 1, 2020. Hence, even if we needed to refile, it would just be 1 year, not more than that as 2021 tax filing is the only one where we filled our "wrong" status. Secondly, the CRA representative said there is no need to refile the tax just to update the relationship status as only thing that would have changed when we would have filed as common-law are the GST benefits. Hence, one of us will have to return the GST benefits. For the rest, we are good.