Serbinski Accounting Firms

"No. Technically, only govt pension (CPP for canada) affects WEP. Not foreign pensions." I guess this should also be "technically" true regardless of whether the retiree is a US citizen or not, right? What do you think the WEP interpretation would be if the individual had worked ...

Would both of these 2 scenarios be equally subject to the Windfall Elimination Provision (along with CPP) for U.S. social security?

I agree that many US brokers will not want to keep a Canadian resident as a client for their IRAs. I always believed this was an internal policy decision based on risk-reward as opposed to a legal restriction. With the rules always subject to changes and new interpretations, there is the risk of bei...

Your interpretation that a Canadian resident cannot trade in an IRA unless the broker is licensed in Canada directly contradicts what Nelsona has been saying (and his interpretation on this issue has always made sense to me). I'm not saying you're wrong; however, I have learned over the last couple ...

"To properly adhere to current securities laws in the US and Canada in your situation (Canadian resident with an IRA), just remember these guidelines. Your adivsor and his firm need to be licensed in the jurisdication in which you reside. So you would need to ensure that both your individual ad...

As has been discussed many times in this forum, if you're going to buy/sell stocks as a US resident you cannot do this in a taxable Cdn brokerage account. Also, if you do this in a self-directed RSP, it must be at a broker registerred in your state of residence (e.g. TD Waterhouse). But what are the...

Redblue - You DO NOT have to sell any of your stocks. Just leave them at your current Canadian broker. As Nelsona said, you cannot buy/trade anymore in that account. But that is different than holding. You just need to understand that several years from now if/when you start to sell stocks, you'll n...

Ed - When you get to the USA, call TD Ameritrade (or any other broker for that matter) and they'll have you fill out a transfer form. Your U.S. broker will take care of everything after that. Make sure to negotiate with the new broker to reimburse you for your transfer fees from TDW (or at least giv...

Yes, I do have the necessary quarters/credits to collect Social Security. Given that there seems to be a good chance I will be subject to WEP (unless the Totalization Agreement saves the day), Canadian jobs that have a pension plan will be less attractive to me compared to those that might pay sligh...

I have been reading up on the Social Security Windfall Elimination Provision and trying to determine its potential impact on me. What kind of Canadian income would be subject to the WEP? From what I can tell, CPP is subject to the WEP but OAS is not. What about pension income from a Canadian company...

Wow! I just pulled up Pub 550 and it is pretty clear that FIFO would be mandatory in my case. That's quite a pain from an accounting perspective. Not only do I need to track cost basis in 2 currencies but also use different methodologies. And if I'm not careful, I could have quite a mis-match on sto...

If I decide to use ACB on my US taxes, do I need to advise the IRS of this decision in any manner? Or should I just track & report using ACB given that the Cdn broker default would be ACB and assume that this would be acceptable to IRS?

Thank you.

I am a US citizen living in Canada and want to better understand what choices I need to make (if any) regarding cost basis on stocks that I sell. As I understand it, there is no choice per the CRA and I must use ACB for all sales of stock. However, the US allows several methods including FIFO (the d...

Good point. I forgot that USC's need to re-source the US-sourced non-real estate gains back to their US returns. Can you re-source Cdn tax back to your US return at your full effective Canadian tax rate or does it need to be 50% of the effective Cdn rate? Thanks.

"Keep in mind though that canada only accepts half the cap gains tax you pay in US as a credit"

Is this specifically related to real estate or is this because of Canada's current 50% inclusion rate for capital gains?