Why was my WITB reduced to zero when I entered my spuses t2202a?

[goodwil]

We are both low income - I qualified for around 1600 refund before we entered her t2202a.  After it went down to about $170

-I put down me as the one who would claim the witb credit
-I called the CRA and they told me that having a spouse who is a student DOES NOT disqualify me from this credit.
-When I fill out our taxes separately, the credit shows up without any issues.

[fuzzy · Accepted solution]

Sorry...but TurboTax is properly calculating your WITB as 0.  It is unfortunate that the CRA agent gave you wrong or misleading info.  According to their website:

7. What is an eligible spouse?
For WITB purposes, an eligible spouse at the end of the year is a person who meets all of the following conditions:

• is your spouse or common-law partner on December 31st;
• is a resident of Canada throughout the year;
• is not enrolled as a full-time student at a designated educational institution for a total of more than 13 weeks in the year, unless he/she has an eligible dependant at the end of the year;
• is not confined to a prison or similar institution for a period of 90 days or more during the year; and
• is not an officer or servant of another country, such as a diplomat, or a family member or employee of such person.

For more info on the WITB, please see http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/bnfts/wtb/fq_qlfyng-eng.html#q2   Although you state that when you file your returns separately you receive the benefit, this is not recommended.  Although CRA may allow the claim on the initial assessment of your return, they will certainly reassess your return at a later date to disallow the benefit plus charge you interest

[Sara-TurboTax]

Thank you for your question.

Kindly contact TurboTax Support and an agent will be glad to assist you. To get a direct line to someone who can help, click the following link to the Contact Us page. Then complete the required information. A phone number will appear, along with your incident ID. Call the number. This will ensure that an appropriate agent is assigned to your query:
https://support.turbotax.intuit.ca/contact/