Transferring basic personal amount to spouse as a newcomer and other tax messes

[Deficient]

Background: I arrived in Canada (Quebec) on 17 September 2012 and became a permanent resident on 24 November 2012 - I am sponsored by my spouse who lives (and always has lived) in Canada and we married in June 2011.

So,

I have had no income worldwide since I came to Canada and I want to transfer what I can of my basic personal amount to my husband. I understand I should file a tax return for this purpose, but a few details elude me here:

1. I cannot see anything in the T1 or Schedule 1 where I would indicate that I am transferring my basic personal amount to my spouse. Am I missing something?

2. Just so I know what info to dig out for my husband's tax accountant: when he reports my net income in the first page of his T1, this is the whole year's worldwide income, net of taxes and deductions (this seems odd? does 'net' mean something else in this context?), thus including the period during which I was non-resident, yes?

3. I noticed when looking at Schedule 5 from the CRA website it is pre-filled with the full basic personal amount of $10,822 in the section calculating the amount transferred from a spouse for Line 303. I had previously assumed in our case my husband couldn't claim the full amount? Or does he claim the full amount, but my full year of worldwide income (as reported on the first page of his T1) is what is taken into account here and therefore he would only benefit from what's left (if any?) ? I suspect the latter but I want to confirm.

4. You're going to love this, I'm sure this question has never come up before :. My husband was reported as single in his 2011 tax return. This is even though I did tell him to instruct his tax guy to put him down as married, and I gave him my UK net income for the year, which he presumably did not pass on to the tax guy. When his tax fellow comes to complete his Schedule 5 to transfer the personal amount from me, there's that question as to whether my husband's marital status changed in 2012 and obviously it did not. But of course he'll be reporting a different marital status on the T1 from that reported for 2011 so clearly something had to have changed at some point. Will CRA care if it doesn't affect anybody's tax liabilities and nobody is claiming benefits? Should he file an amendment for this for 2011? (I am pretty annoyed by this, you might be able to tell.)

I'm loathe to pay somebody to do my return for me when I'm pretty much filing a blank return, but I'd appreciate some pointers so I know what directions to give to my husband when he's handling things for his own tax return, especially given the previous error. I'm from an accounting background in the UK so I'm interested in learning more for my own sake too. I'm sure his tax accountant could answer these questions but I gather my husband doesn't even deal with the guy directly (he uses the same guy as his parents so just hands all his paperwork over to his parents who pass it on... :) so I don't think I'm going to be enlightened at all, so any help here would be very gratefully received.

When it comes to paperwork and such things, you may be able to tell that I am not my husband's biggest fan.

I haven't even looked at the Quebec side of things yet. ???

 

[Deficient]

OK, so regarding question 2, I see "net income" for these purposes doesn't mean after all tax and social insurance deductions, if the third page of the T1 is anything to go by, but please confirm if the full year is relevant, including the period for which I was non-resident.

I think question 3 is a moot point assuming my whole year worldwide income is taken into account, it exceeds the $10,822 basic amount, so I don't think I'll be able to transfer anything to my husband after all, but please confirm if you happen to know. And then that makes question 1 a non-issue for me but feel free to answer it as I'm still interested.

So that pretty much leaves question 4, and as mentioned Schedule 5 won't be completed and therefore there'll be nothing in my husband's 2012 tax return regarding the specific date of the change in marital status - with that in mind, is it still possibly worth bothering to amend the 2011 return for the marital status or not?

 

[Phantom2013]

You can't transfer your personal exemption amount to hers. All she can do is claim you as a spouse.. The exemption is a lot lower.