Personal Finance

Filing Common Law and getting less?

  • Last Updated:
  • Jun 4th, 2011 9:47 pm
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Newbie
Mar 2, 2011
66 posts
14 upvotes
Ottawa

Filing Common Law and getting less?

Hi all,

My fiancee and I filed common law this year as per the law. While we had both gotten the GST credit and she got the Ontario credit last year we can't get it now and even have to repay for last year. I made more money last year as I went back to school this Fall but filed as single and still got GST in 2009. After filing common law in 2010 we had to repay last years credits and get nothing this year because "your family net income is more than $42,505. She made about 10k last year and this year as she is in school. If we filed seperately we'd get a few hundred each but together we get nothing? Our combined income is about $44,000. Is there any benifit to filing together? Almost seems like we should break up for a few days.
4 replies
Deal Expert
User avatar
Feb 9, 2003
19893 posts
4112 upvotes
9347934 downvotes
DarExc wrote: Hi all,

My fiancee and I filed common law this year as per the law. While we had both gotten the GST credit and she got the Ontario credit last year we can't get it now and even have to repay for last year. I made more money last year as I went back to school this Fall but filed as single and still got GST in 2009. After filing common law in 2010 we had to repay last years credits and get nothing this year because "your family net income is more than $42,505. She made about 10k last year and this year as she is in school. If we filed seperately we'd get a few hundred each but together we get nothing? Our combined income is about $44,000. Is there any benifit to filing together? Almost seems like we should break up for a few days.

Committing fraud has some potential disadvantages as well.
Newbie
Mar 2, 2011
66 posts
14 upvotes
Ottawa
Wouldn't be fraud if it were true, if moving out for a bit means saving a lot of money why not? I'm not saying we will do this though anyways, just wondering what the benifit here is?
Deal Addict
Mar 10, 2010
1595 posts
589 upvotes
The benefit is that you are living together jointly and thus sharing the costs which makes it cheaper for the both of you. You'll save way more money living together than separate (as long as your spending habit don't change).
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Jan 27, 2007
5116 posts
984 upvotes
T.
The benefits of taking advantage of spousal transfers far outweights the pittance in HST rebates and ontario tax credits you get as a single taxpayer.

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