Does it matter who claims rental expenses?

If you and your spouse, common-law partner, friend, or other person own the rental property, CRA considers you to be co-owners. As co-owners, you declare a portion of the rent as decided in a written or verbal agreement between the owners,  or If both of you own the property 50/50 - it should be split 50/50. You cannot change the percentages just to lower one spouse's tax liability (IE: report all the income to the lower-income earner). If you BOTH own it and change the ownership percentage this could cause a red flag with CRA. Here's an excerpt from the CRA Rental Guide: Who reports the rental income or loss?
The person who owns the rental property has to report the rental income or loss. If you are a co-owner of the rental property, your share of the rental income or loss will depend on your share of ownership.
Report the rental income the same way for each year you own that rental property. In other words, you cannot change the percentage of the rental income or loss you report each year unless the percentage of your ownership of the property changes.
For more information please follow our TurboTax Article Claiming Rental Income 

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If both of you own the property 50/50 - it should be split 50/50. You cannot change the percentages just to lower one spouse's tax liability (IE: report all the income to the lower-income earner). If you BOTH own it and change the ownership percentage this could cause a red flag with CRA.

Here's an excerpt from the CRA Rental Guide:

Who reports the rental income or loss?   

The person who owns the rental property has to report the rental income or loss. If you are a co-owner of the rental property, your share of the rental income or loss will depend on your share of ownership.

Report the rental income the same way for each year you own that rental property. In other words, you cannot change the percentage of the rental income or loss you report each year unless the percentage of your ownership of the property changes.  

For more information, Please Check out the Canada Revenue Agency FAQ:

Rental Income

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 If you and your spouse, common-law partner, friend, or other person own the rental property, CRA considers you to be co-owners. As co-owners, you declare a portion of the rent as decided in a written or verbal agreement between the owners, or If both of you own the property 50/50 - it should be split 50/50. You cannot change the percentages just to lower one spouse's tax liability (IE: report all the income to the lower-income earner). If you BOTH own it and change the ownership percentage this could cause a red flag with CRA.

Here's an excerpt from the CRA Rental Guide: Who reports the rental income or loss?   

The person who owns the rental property has to report the rental income or loss. If you are a co-owner of the rental property, your share of the rental income or loss will depend on your share of ownership.

Report the rental income the same way for each year you own that rental property. In other words, you cannot change the percentage of the rental income or loss you report each year unless the percentage of your ownership of the property changes.  

For more information please follow our TurboTax Article Claiming Rental Income

Thank you for using TurboTax.