Q: I’m a U.S. citizen, retired and living in Canada. My wife is Canadian with a tax ID number, and we file taxes jointly. We were denied a stimulus check last year. Why?— George Janeston, Ottawa
A: The key to this query is your tax-filing status.
The primary reason why the Internal Revenue Service denied your application has everything to do with your wife’s status as a Canadian citizen and, more important, with her lack of a Social Security number.
Though the economic-stimulus payments last year required you to provide a “valid identification number,” that number, according to the Internal Revenue Code, must be a Social Security number, not a tax identification number. Since it was a joint return, you were denied jointly.
However, says the IRS, if you had filed your returns separately instead of jointly, then chances are you would have been eligible for the stimulus payment while your wife would not. In the end, you’d have gotten a check for $300 or $600 — and that’s assuming you were eligible. If you had income, meaning you were working, then you’d be good.
There is a way to still get it, the IRS tells me. File your returns separately this year — since stimulus payments were based on your 2008 tax status — and apply for the recovery rebate credit.
Be careful, though. Sometimes, married filing separately can result in a higher tax bill.
Be sure to factor in what your wife’s tax bill will be, too, so you can aggregate the amounts and see if the rebate credit is worth obtaining. It might just be cheaper to forget it and file jointly again.
David Migoya wants to get the answers to your consumer questions. E-mail consumertips@denverpost.com or write to Consumer Shopping Bag, The Denver Post, 101 W. Colfax Ave., Suite 600, Denver, CO 80202.
