Do I Need to Claim DASP from Australia as Foreign Pension/Income?

[rywm1978]

I'm torn on this one. CRA keeps telling me I need to declare this as foreign income with no deduction and essentially pay double taxes which goes directly against article 23 of the tax treaty. ATO is telling me "a DASP is neither your assessable income nor exempt income", so I don't even need to declare it.

What's the correct way to declare DASP?

How do I fill it in on TurboTax Online 2021?

[TurboTaxSusan]

If the CRA is telling you to enter the income, then you should. 

You can enter the amount on the Foreign Income slip. To do so in TurboTax Online: 

1. Select Find (or the magnifying glass icon) from the top right
2. In the Find window, type in foreign and then choose “Foreign Income” from the list. Then click “Go”.
3. On the “Foreign Income - Summary” page, click “Enter New foreign income for [Your Name]”.
4. Input your information, then click “Continue” to save.

[rywm1978]

That didn't exactly answer my question, but it did at the same time. You've basically told me to do what the CRA has told me to do.

On the one hand, my hesitation is due to three separate CRA agents explaining the claiming method differently to me. None of them were confident that the method was correct. Some didn't even read the tax treaty. One read it and clearly didn't understand it and just tried to BS me the entire time through.

On the other hand, ATO has stated that DASP payment is non-assessible income which to them means it's not seen as income, so if it's not seen as income then shouldn't it also not be deemed income in Canada?

[TurboTaxSusan]

Unfortunately, it's beyond our scope to give advice about tax treaty issues. If you don't feel that what CRA agents have been telling you is correct, you would need to talk to someone who is knowledgeable in the Australian-Canadian Tax treaty.