My non-Canadian father lives with me in Canada for majority of the year (11 months). He is "visiting" on a supervisa. As he's here for more than 183 days, does that render him a deemed tax resident of Canada? Can I claim him as an eligible dependent for taxes?
Do Parents on supervisa qualify as eligible dependents for taxes?
- Thread starter kellyCB
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As a non-Canadian father who is living with you in Canada for more than 183 days in a year, he may be considered a deemed tax resident of Canada for income tax purposes. This means that he would be subject to Canadian income tax on his worldwide income, just like a Canadian resident.
Whether or not you can claim him as an eligible dependent for taxes depends on a few factors. Firstly, to be considered a dependent, your father must meet the CRA's eligibility criteria. This includes being a resident of Canada, and being dependent on you for support due to physical or mental infirmity.
Secondly, even if your father meets the eligibility criteria for a dependent, claiming him as a dependent on your tax return could have implications for his own tax situation. This is because claiming a dependent may affect his ability to claim certain tax credits or deductions, such as the medical expense tax credit or the age amount.
I would recommend consulting a tax professional or using tax software to determine whether or not you can claim your father as a dependent on your tax return, and to ensure that you are both complying with Canadian tax laws.
Whether or not you can claim him as an eligible dependent for taxes depends on a few factors. Firstly, to be considered a dependent, your father must meet the CRA's eligibility criteria. This includes being a resident of Canada, and being dependent on you for support due to physical or mental infirmity.
Secondly, even if your father meets the eligibility criteria for a dependent, claiming him as a dependent on your tax return could have implications for his own tax situation. This is because claiming a dependent may affect his ability to claim certain tax credits or deductions, such as the medical expense tax credit or the age amount.
I would recommend consulting a tax professional or using tax software to determine whether or not you can claim your father as a dependent on your tax return, and to ensure that you are both complying with Canadian tax laws.
What did you do eventually? I am on the same boat. Wondering if I can claim the health insurance expense for my parents as a medical expense on line 33199 of my return[medical expense credit for other dependents].
Sorry to hear that. Did you claim the medical expenses on 33199 or claimed them as dependents and used their transferred their personal amounts to you?
Claimed as dependent with the personal deduction - so that bit is not allowed for anyone on supervisa - which is probably why Canada is handing out supervisas so easily without doing anything to properly reunite families through pgp. The insurance doesn't cover day-to-day medical procedures, dental, vision etc. which ends up being unsustainable for chronic / non-emergency issues. The whole thing is a joke. we've decided to return to india to take care of parents and not play this bs lottery for god know how many years. Just waiting for the oci to be delieverd anyday and then I am out.
Supervisa are being handed out because there was pressure to increase the PGP quotas. Realistically parent sponsorship isn’t feasible given the lack of healthcare resources to serve existing population. Many were also under the false impression that parent sponsorship was guaranteed when it is not. Canada needs to make that clear when people are making there decisions to come to Canada. Giving out more supervisas was meant to appease people pushing for higher PGP quota. Canada also needs to increase the length of stay to get citizenship or at least require that people remain until they get citizenship because many view 3 years as a small commitment to gain Canadian citizenship and creates a huge liability for Canada especially now that you’ll b able to pass down citizenships through multiple generations abroad. The goal needs to be to retain newcomers for the longterm not to accept the highest number possible.
If they are visitors of your you can’t claim their expenses just like you wouldn’t be able to claim medical expenses if you went to visit them in their home country and used the medical system there. A supervisa remains a visits visa. Many seem to think that this allows a permanent move. Partially the governments fault because they raised the length of stay and are giving people the wrong impression. Many are incorrectly viewing this as a permanent move which is it not. Canada has an increase large number of newcomers, an ageing population and a HC system in crisis. A large number will never be able to secure PR for their parents.
I agree with you on most of your points. However, this bifurcates citizenry into two classes - one with all the priviledges in the tax code of supporting their immediate family members and the other, a significant fraction, that is not granted that priviledge. In the last 5 years, I have paid over $200,000 in direct taxes and perhaps an additional $100k in indirect taxes to Canada. Many immigrants in the economic migration category working in the tech sector are in the same boat. How reasonable is it to expect elderly people and their canadian citizen children to have to fly abroad for every basic medical procedure when the granted stay is 5 years? Insurance doesn't cover day to day non-emergency procedures and having them done out of pocket is prohibitively expensive despite paying a disproportionately higher amount of taxes compared to the native born cohort on average. In fact, by creating this discriminatory class system, Canada is pushing productive citizens out of the country so that they can meet their familial obligations towards their elderly parents all the while anyone and everyone can just walk across the border from vermont and upstate new york with their dog and families, claim asylum, and granted access to hotels and health cards. The least CRA could do is help law abiding folks afford those medical expenses incurred within Canada with similar tax exemptions as any other Canadian citizen.
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So my mother has been living with me since 2015 -on super visa, initially, then we extended her stay and then COVID hit and so they extended again. She went back for a month in 2023 and returned. I am a tax professional and I filed all the claims with receipts but CRA rejected and asked for refund with interest. I have now submitted form on her behalf to get judgment on her status for tax purposes from CRA for 2023. Once I get a judgment on that, I will see how to take this forward. It is so unfair that they are okay with old parents to join Canadians for childcare but won't even allow hard working "Canadians" to claim basic expenses they paid for their parents.
There is an important distinction. She is visiting not living in Canada. The fact that she as able to return to Canada as a visitor after spending a month is the real problem. This reinforces the incorrect notion that parents are able to move to Canada and are not visitors. Not sure what ground you have for her to have any tax status in Canada. She is a visitor.
The ability for parents to move to Canada permanently is relatively new. For a long time it was understood that immigration meant that you would not be able to bring your parents to Canada and people still immigrated. That often meant that one child remained in their home country with the parents or parents were left on their own. In many countries, especially with access to public healthcare, you can not sponsor your parents and people still immigrate to those countries. There may be some who choose not to immigrate but given that we can’t meet the healthcare demands for people who worked and paid taxes adding more seniors who will likely never work or pay taxes is tough to justify. The argument that is often used is that you pay a large amount of taxes so you cover the cost of your parents care only works if you are paying substantially more taxes than you are paying now. There are some examples where parents and their own dependent children are healthy all their lives and their children are healthy only they are adults and independent and die suddenly at age 90 but that is very rare. Most families will face medical issues over time especially in the last 5 years of life that adds up to substantial healthcare spending. While children are young it is not unusual to visit the doctor or have to go to the ER fairly frequently which adds up and tax dollars don’t only go to healthcare: The ability to visit on a supervisa for long periods of time is a personal choice and comes with both negatives and positives consequence. Many do return to their home country at least annually or visit for shorter periods of time so they can access healthcare in their home country, make sure their home is in good condition, visit friends and family, deal with any administrative issue like pension or banking in general, etc. Dealing with relatively simple medical issues in Canada like a simple infection is not prohibitively expensive. If CRA allowed children to claim medical costs for their visiting dependent parents or grandparents it would reinforce many people’s view that their parents had moved to Canada permanently when they are visitors. You can’t compare Canadian citizens/PRs who are able to claims expenses for their dependent parents who are also Canadian PRs/citizens to Canadian citizens/PRs whose parents are visiting Canada. One set of parents file Canadians taxes and have spent their lifetime or a large percentage of their life working and paying into the Canadian tax base while others have not and are currently not filling taxes. Do agree that the asylum system and other immigration programs need to be reviewed and changed but issues with the asylum system does not mean that parent sponsorship should be made easier or quota should be increased. The amount of seniors claiming asylum is relatively low. The state of the healthcare system, the ability to support existing senior who are already PRs or citizens and our ageing population are things that need to be considered. Anyone working in healthcare will tell you that we can’t absorb more seniors. Immigration is one of the things used to combat our ageing population so allowing unlimited parent and grandparent sponsorship would add to the ageing population. Many tech workers are not going to stay in Canada and I have seen many who sponsor their parents and leave them in Canada while they move to mostly the US so yes Canada will lose some skilled workers because of the inability or difficulty sponsoring parents or grandparents but we would lose many skilled workers for other reasons. It is impossible to guarantee parents sponsorship given the volume of newcomers to Canada and we have limited healthcare resources. Focusing on meeting the needs of the existing populations will be challenging enough. It is very hard to justify how a senior who has never worked or paid taxes in Canada should have access to services while people who have worked and paid taxes all or the majority of their lives (many who immigrated to Canada) are unable to obtain the services or are in the same line waiting for services. For example there are millions in Canada without a GP which will only get worse. If I have been a Canadian taxpayer for the past 40+ years and are trying to secure a GP it would feel extremely unfair that a sponsored parent who has only recently received PR in Canada and will likely never pay taxes may be able to secure a GP before I am able to get one. You can replace GP with any other HC resource. If there was excess capacity in the system that would be different but there is not. Many considering immigration to Canada are also being misled by IRCC and are under the false impression that parent sponsorship is guaranteed and/or will be relatively fast and easy after receiving PR and meeting the 3 years (1 year in Quebec) of an incredibly low LICO. In reality parent sponsorship isn’t guaranteed and in the majority of cases parents will need to way wait much longer than 3 years to get selected plus and additional processing time of up to a few years. The fact that parent sponsorship is not guaranteed and wait times people have actually experienced should be posted. That way people considering immigrating to Canada can make an informed decision. Decisions related to PGP and supervisas and the push to increase quotas and length of visit are often made based on the likelihood of securing the “immigrant vote” which is a very important voting group. PGP is a top 3 voting issue in some ridings. Most parties and politicians are not willing to address the feasibility of PGP or supervisas on the record other than competing to promise higher quotas, the longest lengths of stays, etc. Off the record they will admit that the program isn’t feasible given the volume of newcomers, a HC system in crisis, LICO being way too low, many families who are able to secure PGP or supervisas are also using the foodbank and applying for low income housing (either the whole family or parents applying for low income senior housing), many are falsifying their income when applying for especially PGP, etc. Parent sponsorship and visit with a supervisa is a complex issue but politicians won’t even discuss the issue and whether it is feasible out of fear of the backlash. Meanwhile most Canadians are unaware of the program or because PGP is often described as children being financially responsible for their parents many are under the false impression that children pay out of pocket for their parents healthcare or the parents don’t have access to “free” healthcare, that parents who get PR will get access to all programs that other PRs get access to like tax rebates, often access to both OAS and GIS after 10 years, access to subsidized housing, prescription coverage depending on the province, etc. Other than not being able to apply for welfare for 20 years and 10 years in Quebec you have access to everything if you have received PR through PGP. Canada need immigration for a variety of reasons but there also need to be a rebalancing of how people get PR when meeting the 500k quota. The proportion receiving PR via family sponsorship, asylum or refugee, other H&C reasons versus economic pathways needs to be reassessed. It is much harder to get PR visa economic pathways, which should not be the case, and is leading to people to attempt to secure PR status via things like asylum claims and H&C without grounds for these claims and often with fraudulent documents or exaggerated or incorrect incorrect. Sadly we are going to see an increase of these fraudulent claims because IRCC accepted a very large amount of work/study permits, has increased the amount of people accepted via humanitarian programs which has been abused (for example Turkey earthquake program became a way for anyone from Turkey to secure a WP with and there is as a huge number of applicants in the last 4-6 weeks before programs expired), approved an extremely large amount of study permits, allowed for WP approval for anyone from Canada (IRCC has not done anything about people paying employers and consultant/lawyers for job offers), etc. There is only a limited number of spots available in the yearly PR quota for economic immigrants after processing for family members and PRs due to asylum or other H&C reasons. CRS scores will remain very high if not higher. The are many aspects of the immigration system that needs to be assessed and IRCC needs to address the fraud and abuse of the immigration system.
Your choice to bring your parents here .
Adding the deal was when you brought said parent to Canada you’d / they be responsible for their expenses ? Correct ?
Now you’re thinking “ Hmmm, she’s costing me money staying here “
Now it appears you want the Government to pay . And you get a credit .
Btw, if gramma is here looking after the kids , presumably free of charge , you’re already saving coin. That’s NINE YEARS
And the hardworking Canadians mantra is irrelevant. You chose to invite , your expense. If it’s an issue , parents can always return
“Letter of invitation from your host child or grandchild. How to calculate family size.
Minimum necessary income requirements.
As a tax preparer, obviously you miscalculated
( You agreed you had the necessary income to support the individual)
Proof of health insurance.
Proof of completing a medical exam.
Proof that your host is a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or registered Indian.
Proof of your relationship to your host.”
… like they say “ Give people an inch , and they’ll ( attempt in this case ) take a mile.
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