My common law spouse and I have a mutual child under 10 and I have a child who turned 18 last year. The adult child receives odsp due to a mental disability and resides with me full time; they do not pay room and board or other house related expenses, the income they receive stays with them. I may be mistaken but I believe we can only claim one dependent which has typically been the mutual child since we file have to file as a couple. Do I claim the adult dependent and their income or the small child this year and going forward?
Thank you for your question,
If you want to claim an eligible tax credit for your older child, you should have some criteria.
As per the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA):
if you have not claimed an amount for the year on line 30300 of your return, you may be able to claim this amount for one dependant if, at any time in the year, you met all the following conditions at once:
In addition, at the time you met the above conditions, the dependant must also have been either:
Because your child is 18 years old and also you live with your common-law partner, you cannot claim an eligible dependant tax credit for your older child.
You can get more information on the website of Claiming the Amount for an Eligible Dependant Credit
However, you may claim Canada caregiver tax credit for an older child. For getting Canada caregiver tax credit, your child depends on you for support because of physical or mental impairment. Because your mutual child doesn't have any physical or mental impairment, you cannot claim Canada Caregiver tax credit for him. You may claim Canada Caregiver tax credit for your older son because he has a mental disability.
You can get more information on the website of What amount can you claim?