Box 16 - foreign income tax paid on dividends income doesn't affect the total refund

[Trastabuga]

Hi

Not sure if it's a bug or just some tax related rule...

I am filling in a T5 for my spouse foreign income with rough number like (USD)

Box 15: 300$

Box 16: 50$

I noticed that the amount of Box 16 (foreign income tax paid on dividends income) doesn't affect the total refund 

Shouldn't the amount of tax paid affect the bottom line, or it doesn't matter if the foreign tax was paid or not? 

[Trastabuga]

Looking at T2209 form clarified the issue. Looks like in the tax credit calculation formula there is a place where it gets multiplied by "basic federal tax" which was 0.

So basically that gives zero credit hence it doesn't affect the total return.