Love with benefits: 6 tax tools for married couples

By Manish Puri,
Special to The Post
 
Are you taking the leap this spring and getting married? While average spending on the big day continues to rise, once the ‘I dos’ are done you may be able to cut your tax bill. Here are six tools that married couple can use to reduce their taxes.
The Family Tax Cut: This lowers the overall tax bill for families raising children under 18 years old by enabling the higher-earning spouse to shift up to $50,000 in taxable income to the lower-earning spouse. The tax savings of up to $2,000 results when the higher income-earner moves into a lower tax bracket with the income shift. For more details on how to qualify visit: http://blog.turbotax.ca/family-tax-cut/
Pooling Charitable Donations:  If your partner and you contributed more than $200 to a registered charity in the year, you can receive a larger tax credit by pooling these. To take advantage, one partner claims the total of donations made by the couple in the tax year on a single tax return.
Pooling Medical Expenses: It’s best for couples to combine all of their medical expenses and claim them all on the lower-earning spouse’s tax return. That’s because as of 2014, the spouse who claims the medical expenses receives a non-refundable tax credit for medical expenses above 3 percent of the net income.
Pension Splitting: If you’re receiving a pension, you may be able to split it with your spouse to lower your family’s overall tax bill. You’ll benefit most when you’re in a higher tax bracket than your spouse, and the splitting moves you into a lower bracket.  
Spousal RRSPs: With spousal RRSPs, you can make contributions to an RRSP registered in the name of your spouse. This enables the older spouse to continue contributing to a spousal RRSP until December 31 of the year the younger spouse turns 71. If your spouse is in a lower marginal tax bracket, you can lower your family’s overall tax bill.
Spousal Amount: If one spouse financially supports the other you may be able to claim the spousal amount of $11,138 ($11,327 for 2015). 
With these six tools and trusted tax software like TurboTax - which automatically searches for all the credits and deductions you qualify for -there’s no reason to get cold feet come tax time.
Manish Puri works for Intuit Canada and is deeply passionate about helping Canadians do their own taxes. More details about tax benefits and issues are available http://blog.turbotax.ca.