QUESTION: Hi there,
My husband and I got married May 2005. He is living and working in the
states. I am still in canada with my son. We have not started the
immigration process yet until the court settles the issue with my ex in
regards to relocating to the states with our son. My question is
this........do we file our taxes seperate or joint. Does he claim me, do i
claim him, what about my son? Please help i don't know where to start.
Sincerely,
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david ingram replies:
Are you from Old Crow? No matter -
You will file your Canadian return as before. This year, 2005, the year of
marriage, you can still claim your son as an equivalent to Spouse on
Schedule 5.
However, you "do" have to report your husband's income on your return and
that will stop you from claiming any GST credit or renter's tax credit or
other provincial credits depending upon your province of residence.
The really good news is that your husband can file a joint return with you
AND claim your son as a dependent. It should result in a $3,000 to $5,000
US larger refund.
You have to report your Canadian income on the US return. You will exempt
any Canadian earned income on form 2555. Depending upon the combined
income, your husband can also claim the EIC and the Child tax credit and
additional child tax credit (form 8812). The form indicates that the child
has to live in the US for 7 to 12 months. However, there is an exception
(which is not easy to find) for children living in Mexico and Canada.
Since neither of you have a SSN or ITIN, your husband has to file the return
with two W-7 forms attached. The W7 form is an application for an ITIN
(Individual Taxpayer Identification Number). It requires a lot of ORIGINAL
documentation to be submitted with the form. I would suggest that you do
NOT want to send in your original Birth Certificates and original Canadian
Passports and wait up to 8 months to get them back and that assumes that
they do not get lost in the system.
The best solution is to take the tax return and the W-7 forms and the
original passports, etc. to an actual Social Security office and let them
verify the documents and make their certified copies. The Social Security
Office will then submit the tax return for you with the numbers issued.
MUCH MORE CIVILIZED.
I don't suppose that I have to suggest that for this year AND the year you
actually move to the US, you should likely have a firm like ours prepare all
the returns, State, Federal, Federal and provincial if from Quebec.
--------------
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