Claiming Adult and Child dependants

[Letty_2021]

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?

[ayseleren18]

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:

• You did not have a spouse or common-law partner or, if you did, you were not living with, supporting, or being supported by that person
• You supported the dependant in 2020
• You lived with the dependant (in most cases in Canada) in a home you maintained. You cannot claim this amount for a person who was only visiting you

In addition, at the time you met the above conditions, the dependant must also have been either:

• your parent or grandparent by blood, marriage, common-law partnership, or adoption
• your child, grandchild, brother, or sister by blood, marriage, common-law partnership, or adoption and was under 18 years of age or had an impairment in physical or mental functions

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?