Child Care Tax Benefit - really naive question

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stripes

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This makes me sound like a complete idiot, but I just remembered that the CCTB exists, and that I haven't been getting it. I've been separated for the tax years 2011 and 2012. When my ex and I separated our finances, he kept the former joint chequing account which had been set up for direct deposit. I haven't seen any of this benefit turning up in my new account, so I'm guessing I forgot to notify CRA of the change.

Is there any way I can find out if my ex has been claiming all the CCTB for our child these past two years, and/or change things so that in future it gets split? I understand he's probably not obligated to reimburse me for CCTB I missed because I didn't file a change of bank account.
 
Call up the CRA office that deals with the the UCCB and CCTB (1-800-387-1193) and tell them that you haven't been receiving the payments for the period you specified and that you would like to make application to receive the benefits. If your ex is receiving them it will come out in the process and (assuming he isn't entitled to the benefit) he'll likely have to pay CRA back.
 
The biggest problem may be however, that if it was still coming in the OP's name, and not the ex but she forgot to notify CRA, there may not be much CRA will do, seeing as it was still in her name but she forgot. Have you spoke to the ex about this? You can log onto the CRA website and see if benefits are being paid to you and you can switch your bank info online.
 
Thanks very much for your help. I went to the CRA website and got the information I needed for how to split this benefit in the future. I think the past is water under the bridge, because of my mistake, so I'm not going to pursue the ex about this.
 
I went through this in the opposite direction. I was getting my ex's tax deposits because he was lax in changing his bank account info with CRA. I reminded him the first few times, and he said he would do it and for me to keep the money for the kids (this sounds a lot more generous than it really was). After that, I didn't feel it was my job to keep nagging him.

However, I also remember that direct deposit is sometimes hard to figure out. Amounts sometimes just appeared on my statement and never had more than a weird acronym to tell you what they are from. And extremely different sources of money can have the same acronym! So it was hard to tell which amounts were mine and which were my ex's. Your ex may not even know he's getting money that should be yours. Depending on how honest he is and how amicable your separation was, he may be okay with writing you a cheque. Or laugh at you. But it could be worth trying.
 
Good point. If we're at an amicable point sometime, I'll mention it. Right now, though, it's not a hill I'm going to die on, especially as it's my mistake.

(On a related but still annoying note - I was the one who moved out, so I was the one who had to change my address, and inevitably a few things addressed to me ended up at his place. The ex was scrupulous about having me come and pick up every bit of junk mail with my name on it, but any mail which was actually important seemed to disappear, including tax receipts for significant amounts of money donated to charity. I'm still trying to chase down duplicate receipts from the charities. Minor, I know, but still a bit grating).
 
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