Tricky family size question

[trea26]

we just found out that my wife is pregnant yesterday, I have to say that we have mixed emotion about it. The pregnancy is unplanned and the due date will be the end of November 2016.

We have planned to submit our sponsorship application for her parents in Jan 2017 and we carefully calculated our family income for the past 3 years so it would meet the requirement and we put the surplus part into our RRSPs to bring our taxes bracket down . Now that a new family member will be added right before the submission of the application, I am afraid that our income will not meet the requirements anymore and we will have to wait another three years before we could even submit the application....

I wonder if anyone knows how rigid the income requirements are. In our case, is there any hope that we could still submit an application with an explanation letter and proof of RRSP contributes slips so the income requirements for the past three years could be considered based on the actually family size of those years (2013, 14, 15) and new family sized to be considered going forward (2016 and forward)?

I phoned CIC call center today but they won't give me a straight answer. We should be excited about this new baby but now due to the timing we are very concerned and worried.

Any thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Alurra71]

we just found out that my wife is pregnant yesterday, I have to say that we have mixed emotion about it. The pregnancy is unplanned and the due date will be the end of November 2016.

We have planned to submit our sponsorship application for her parents in Jan 2017 and we carefully calculated our family income for the past 3 years so it would meet the requirement and we put the surplus part into our RRSPs to bring our taxes bracket down . Now that a new family member will be added right before the submission of the application, I am afraid that our income will not meet the requirements anymore and we will have to wait another three years before we could even submit the application....

I wonder if anyone knows how rigid the income requirements are. In our case, is there any hope that we could still submit an application with an explanation letter and proof of RRSP contributes slips so the income requirements for the past three years could be considered based on the actually family size of those years (2013, 14, 15) and new family sized to be considered going forward (2016 and forward)?

I phoned CIC call center today but they won't give me a straight answer. We should be excited about this new baby but now due to the timing we are very concerned and worried.

Any thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated!

The rules are VERY rigid. You either qualify or you don't. It sounds as if with another family member in the mix you now won't qualify. Letters of explanation likely wouldn't even be read so they would make no difference. Your NOA is what will qualify you for sponsorship, nothing else.

 

[trea26]

The rules are VERY rigid. You either qualify or you don't. It sounds as if with another family member in the mix you now won't qualify. Letters of explanation likely wouldn't even be read so they would make no difference. Your NOA is what will qualify you for sponsorship, nothing else.

from reading the posts in this forum, some people mentionned that the timing is very important, it's the family size at the time of the submission that counts.

I wonder when the application forms would typically be available for next year's submission? If by any chance they are available by November, can we start to fill and sign them before the baby is born? Would this be a possible solution?

 

[scylla]

from reading the posts in this forum, some people mentionned that the timing is very important, it's the family size at the time of the submission that counts.

I wonder when the application forms would typically be available for next year's submission? If by any chance they are available by November, can we start to fill and sign them before the baby is born? Would this be a possible solution?

You can - but that will lead to a misrepresentation finding (lying in your application to gain an immigration benefit). You can't submit the application until January. When it's submitted in January, the information all has to be 100% accurate as of that date (including family composition).

What does line 150 of your tax return say? That's ultimately what CIC will use to determine if you qualify to sponsor your parents or not.

 

[trea26]

You can - but that will lead to a misrepresentation finding (lying in your application to gain an immigration benefit). You can't submit the application until January. When it's submitted in January, the information all has to be 100% accurate as of that date (including family composition).

What does line 150 of your tax return say? That's ultimately what CIC will use to determine if you qualify to sponsor your parents or not.

Thanks!

Line 150 on my previous 3 years of NOA show the amount after our RRSP contribution which are all just slightly above the required income. For example, if our family income is 100k and the required amount for our family size in that year is 70k, we would put 28k to our RRSP and leave just 72k to line 150...