CC: Hi, and welcome to another episode of Taxology, the official podcast of the Canada Revenue Agency! I’m your host CC, and today’s episode is for all you parents out there.

Maybe you have a newborn, adopted a child, or have a new parenting situation. Whatever that may be, it’s important to let the CRA know since it can affect your taxes and benefits. By the way, congrats on finding the time to listen to this episode!

We don’t want you to miss out on child and family benefits and credits, specifically the Canada child benefit, also known as the CCB! You’ll also hear terms and acronyms like the GST/HST credit, also known as the GSTC, Automated Benefits Application, also known as ABA, and lastly, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which you may know as IRCC.

Don’t worry! On today’s episode, we’re meeting with Lindsay, a CRA expert who will help break it all down for you.

We can’t help you change diapers, build a crib, or babysit to give you a night off, but we can help you get the benefits you’re eligible for. And who knows, maybe our soothing chat about the exciting world of taxes and benefits will help your baby fall asleep. So get that baby carrier on and let’s talk while you walk!

Welcome to the show Lindsay!

Lindsay: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here.

CC: So, Lindsay, you told me offline that you’re…

Lindsay: Pregnant!

CC: Yay! Congratulations.

Lindsay: I'm well positioned to talk about how to apply for CCB in many ways.

CC: Amazing! What is the Canada child benefit?

Lindsay: Canada Child Benefit, also known as CCB. It's a tax free monthly benefit that we pay to families to help them offset the cost of raising their children.

CC: Oh yeah, I hear raising kids is really expensive.

Lindsay: Yeah, I've heard that too. Just kidding! Just beginning to realize. And so CCB is income tested.

And so we use your adjusted family net income to calculate how much benefits you are going to be paid. And so that's why it's so important to file your tax returns every year.

It's based on how many kids you have in your care and also the age of the children in your care. So if your children are under six years old, you get a little bit more.

And then once they turn six and all the way until 17. You'll still get payments, but the amount will decrease.

And when you apply for CCB, you're also assessed for all the other related benefits. So we'll also make sure you're eligible for GSTC, HST. Because you get a child portion of that payment as well. And then depending on what province you're in, we’ll also assess you for any related provincial benefits.

So if you're in Alberta, there is the Alberta child and family benefit.

CC: So I understand that some of the provincial amounts are added to the CCB payment and some of them are paid separately?

Lindsay: Uh, no, it'll all be paid in the same one lump sum. And so that'll include any…So your CCB, any provincial or territorial amounts, and then if you have a child with a disability, that will also include the child disability amount as well.

CC: So what is the first thing that new parents are going to need to do for their tax and benefit affairs?

Lindsay: Um, apply!

CC: Haha.

Lindsay: So if you give birth in Canada, the easiest way to apply would be through ABA, which is the Automated Benefits Application.

And that normally comes to you when you register the birth of your baby with your province. And so I'm going to speak for Ontario because that's the one I'm the most familiar with.

But when you register the birth of your baby, normally, it's in the hospital. And they'll give you a package and so that's where you register for your SIN, you register for your health card, register for your birth certificate, and then in that package you can also register or apply for CCB, for Canada Child benefits, and that's going to be the easiest way.

That's all you have to do is check a box, and we will take it from there.

CC: That's amazing.

Lindsay: Yeah.

CC: How are you going to remember to do that?

Lindsay: Hopefully you have a partner. If you're, if you're the one giving birth, you have a partner who will take care of all that paperwork for you.

But if you don't remember, there's always other ways to apply. So you can apply if you have a My Account, you can apply through benefits online.

Lindsay: And if you do apply through benefits online, you are required to provide proof of birth for your baby. If you apply using ABA, you don't need to provide any extra documents because the province is going to provide the birth registration number. So we don't need anything else from you.

Lindsay: But if you apply on benefits online or if you apply on paper, we need proof of birth for your baby.

So that could be a birth certificate. But if you don't have your birth certificate yet, we also accept a lot of other documents, such as your hospital record, as long as your baby's name and date of birth is there, that's perfect.

CC: So everyone in Canada can use the ABA?

Lindsay: It is unfortunately not available in Nunavut, but in all of our other provinces and territories it is available.

CC: Do I need all of that information for my kid? I mean, what do you need a SIN number for, working right? Do babies need SINs?

Lindsay: Haha, I don't know. We don't need your baby’s SIN, but you might want to apply for your baby’s SIN when you're registering the birth of your child.

I think it's just kind of an all-in-one package. We do need mom’s SIN, we need mom’s full name and we need mom’s province of birth.

So that's the information that your province will send to the CRA and then we use that information to find mom in our database and then we will assess if she is eligible for CCB.

CC: Is there like a time limit that you need to apply? Is it just for newborns or can you apply, you know, if you've forgotten for a year or two?

Lindsay: Yeah, you can apply at any time.

The only thing that we want to flag is that if you're applying for a period that started more than 11 months ago, we're going to be asking for more documents.

If you forgot to apply when your baby was first born because you had lots of other things going on, understandably, that's fine. If it’s within, you know, six months, seven months, no problem. Just send us an application and proof of birth and we can, we'll take it from there.

If you are applying for more than 11 months then we will definitely still look at your application. We'll still process it, but we need a few more documents. So we'll need proof of birth, we'll also need proof of citizenship, and we might ask for proof of what we call that you are the primary caregiver. And so that would be, you know, just a doctor's note saying like “Yes, Lindsay is responsible for this baby and she always has been”.

CC: Can you only apply for this if you're the one that's giving birth? Or what if you're adopting a baby?

Lindsay: Absolutely. If you're adopting a baby, you can still apply. In that case you wouldn't be able to use the Automated Benefits Application. You would go online, using the benefits online application or you could also apply using the paper application and mail that to us.

And if you don't have a birth certificate for that baby, or, you know, maybe a little bit older than a baby, again, that's fine. There's lots of other documents that you can provide to us to prove that you have that kid with you.

CC: And do you need to be a Canadian citizen to take advantage of the Canada child benefit? Or are the steps different if you haven't given birth in Canada, or like, what if you were a newcomer to Canada?

Lindsay: So you definitely don't need to be a Canadian citizen, but there are citizenship requirements. And so, newcomer is kind of a tricky term because you could come into Canada as a newcomer and have a permanent resident status, or you could be protected person. Both of those citizenship statuses you're eligible for CCB, to apply right away.

If you come in as a temporary resident, there is a waiting period. So you would have to stay in Canada for 18 continuous months before you can apply.

And so in your 19th month, then you're eligible for CCB. And then if you are a newcomer and you come to Canada with children, you would not be able to use ABA unfortunately.

If you filed a tax return, you would be eligible to use benefits online, or you could apply using the paper application.

And again, we would ask for proof of birth, for that, the children that you're applying for. And if you don't have a birth certificate for those kids, we would also accept any IRCC documents for those kids, or any

CC: OK, it all comes back to filing your taxes.

Lindsay: Yes, if you don't file your taxes, we don't know how much to pay you! So definitely keep on top of filing your taxes.

CC: How much is CCB? Like how much should I expect to get every month?

Lindsay: So that depends on a lot of different things. Um, it depends on your income. It depends on your marital status, depends on how many kids you have, it depends on how old your kids are.

And so the best way to get an estimate of how much you're going to get is to use our online tool. And it's a calculation tool and it’s “Calculate my benefits”. So you'll just input all of your information into there and it'll tell you how much you’re going to get.

CC: So one kid some amount, two kids more?

Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah, you'll get more, and it also depends how old your kids are. So if they're under six, they're going to get a little bit more, and if they're six or older they're going to get a little bit less.

CC: Are there any misconceptions to clear up or tips for parents to claim benefits and credits?

Lindsay: I think one of the biggest misunderstood legislation portions of the CCB is the female presumption.

So basically, if there is a female and male parents in the household, the legislation presumes that the female parent is going to be primarily responsible for the care and upbringing of the children.

Um and that is, that's in the legislation. And of course, the CRA totally knows that the dads are such an important part of the household.

But I think it's kind of just an administration thing. It just makes it a little bit easier for us to know who we should pay.

And so I've heard, there are sometimes we get questions from single dads and they're like “Oh, well, I'm not going to apply because I'm not the female”.

And that's definitely not how female presumption works.

If you are a single dad, you should apply. You are the parent, primary caregiver. You are going to get the CCB.

So if you are a dad and you're living with a female partner in the household. The female partner should apply, and if she is not primarily responsible for the care of the children, the dad can apply. He just needs to provide a declaration stating that he is the one who takes care of the kids and should be getting this CCB.

And if Dad applies and doesn't provide that declaration, we're still going to process the application. We'll just put the kids on mom’s account.

So someone in the family is definitely still going to get CCB. It just depends who's going to get it.

CC: What about same sex parents?

Lindsay: Same sex parents? We can only pay one person in the household. So it’s up to you who should apply. But one person in the household will get the payments for all the kids in the household.

It still applies if you have children from different relationships. All the children are going to be combined onto one account and one parent is going to get all that money for those kids.

CC: Complicated.

Lindsay: Haha yeah, it sounds a bit complicated, but it actually makes things a lot easier for us on the administration end.

CC: Oh, okay. Would there be any case where the female presumption rule wouldn't apply?

Lindsay: Female presumption does not apply to the GSTC portion of the benefit, and that goes to whoever files their tax returns first.

So if Dad files his tax return first and we see that he has all these children on his account, dad will get the child portion of the GSTC for the kids.

CC: Okay.

So once I've applied for CCB, that's it, right? One and done, I don't have to do anything else again?

Lindsay: Well, you don't have to apply again. But there are a few things you can do to make sure that your benefits aren't interrupted.

So one thing we already touched on is to make sure you file your taxes every year, because that helps us determine how much money you get.

Also, we want you to keep us informed of any situation changes, so if you…custody changes, for example. If you have a kid who joins your home, obviously you're applying. Or maybe that you have a child who is going into a shared custody situation. We want to know that as well.

If you move between provinces, we want to know that. Because that's going to affect the provincial and territorial amount that you get.

If your marital status changes. So if you are separated, or if you become single, or if you get married, we need to know all that as well.

And finally, citizenship status. So really, this really only applies to people who are temporary residents. Because temporary residents have an expiry date on their, on their citizenship.

And so if your citizenship expires as a temporary resident, you'll have to apply for a new permit and you have to send us that new permit information. Because then we see that you're still eligible, and we can still continue to pay you benefits.

CC: Lindsay, do you have any tips and tricks for us for applying for CCB or any benefits and credits?

Lindsay: I think it would just be, again to just keep the CRA informed. So you can go to Canada.ca on the CCB page and you can learn all of the new information that we would need to be informed about if anything changes.

And you can also see those supporting documents, if any documents you can provide, if you don't have a birth certificate for your baby when you're applying your baby or your child.

And then to get a My Account, because that's really the easiest way aside from ABA to apply for CCB. And then you can use My Account to update all pretty much everything we talked about. So you can keep us informed that way and it's just an easy way to see all your information and keep us informed.

CC: Gotcha. Well, thanks for coming, Lindsay.

Lindsay: Yes! It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

CC: I learned a lot.

Lindsay: Good. I’m glad.

CC: And congratulations again and good luck with the baby!

Lindsay: Thank you so much. I'm very excited.

CC: Thanks to our guest Lindsay for being on today’s show. We hope this information has helped all of you new parents prepare to take advantage of the CCB and learn about child and family benefits. And maybe we help put your baby to sleep too! Now tiptoe off and have a nice cup of tea – you deserve a break.

If you would like to learn more about the Canada Child Benefit, please go to canada.ca/canada-child-benefit. You can also follow us on Facebook, X, or Instagram @CanRevAgency, especially to get reminders about when your next payment arrives.

I’m your host CC, and thanks for listening! Until next time, stay safe and do your taxes.