Same sex marriage between Canadian and American

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rob69
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jul 14, 2016 11:07 am
Location: Blaine, Wa

Same sex marriage between Canadian and American

Post by rob69 »

Hello.

My partner is Canadian living in Vancouver, and I am an American living on the border of the Washington state and Canada. We commute back and forth between homes to make the relationship work, and while that is fine, we are both contemplating marriage.

Having recently retired as a teacher, I am receiving monthly payouts from my TIAA after-tax free annuity for the rest of my life. I'm also receiving social security. The SS and TIAA monthly payouts allow me to live comfortably in a nice house I bought 3 years ago.

My partner (in his mid-40's) in Vancouver left his position as an engineer, and is now a student in the health industry making no money but living on his savings. He will be able to work after he passes some tests and receives the appropriate licenses.

Having never married, what are the tax implications for someone like myself and my partner under the current conditions- he renting a place in Vancouver and me in Washington state. Later in, we would want to live in the same house as we did overseas for 12 years, but I am concerned about the tax implications now.

Thank you so much.

Rob
nelsona
Posts: 18311
Joined: Wed Oct 27, 2004 2:33 pm
Location: Nowhere, man

Post by nelsona »

Since this is the tax forum, I'll only outline the tax situation.

If you are legally married by a jurisdiction which has legal same-sex marriage, you will be considered married for IRS tax purposes, meaning you will file your US tax return as either married filing jointly or married filing separately.

Canada will view you are married as well.

How simple/complex your tax filing situation will get will depend on whether you both live in US, both in Canada, or stay as you do now. A US resident simply marrying a Cdn resident (without moving to Canada) does not automatically become a Cdn tax resident. if not there is no tax consequence for you.

From the IRS side, while the spouse of a US citizen is not obligated to file jointly, there are typically good advantages for the USC to file jointly (ie, reduced tax rate and better exemptions an deductions) the non-USC will typically jointly file with the US resident, thus becoming in almost all aspects a US taxpayer. While this rarely has a tax cost to the couple, it is more of a foreign reporting issue (FBAR,FATCA,PFIC, TFSA) which may or may not be an issue in his specific case.

Your other issues are all related to legal immigration.
nelsona non grata. Non pro. Please Search previous posts, no situation is unique as you might think. Happy Browsing :D
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