Serbinski Accounting Firms

Hi, Again... Two related questions: On Lines 6 and 7 of Part V, Schedule A of Form 8854 for 2010, the taxpayer is required to enter the Fair Market Value of his U.S. and foreign pensions. Am I correct that one is to use some kind of actuarial table to determine one's life expectancy and then to mult...

Hi, Nelsona...

Thanks for all the help over the past week or two. In your posting of March 9 at 8:30 p.m., you state "I would not worry about how the tax is calculated from Pub 939.. It is not an annuity". Not that I understand the difference between an annuity and a pension (I sure as heck do not), but I did find a 1980 link to the Treasury Department Technical Explanation of the 2007 Protocol of the U.S.-Canada Tax Treaty at this address:

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/internati ... 03,00.html

If you click on the "Technical Explanation - 2008" link and check out the very top of page 30 of that document, you'll find this quote:

"Further, the definition of “pensionsâ€￾ includes, for example, payments from individual retirement accounts (IRAs) in the United States and from registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) and registered retirement income funds (RRIFs) in Canada."

So, maybe that Publication 939 might well in fact be applicable?

Cheers,
Tomcat...

Hi, Nelsona... That's the hope, that Bank 'B' will reimburse the fee. They did so for a couple of transfers from Bank 'A' two years ago, and our local banker thinks that their not having done so last year was an oversight and that they'll look to get the fees reimbursed. On the transfer confirmation...

Re: Line 30 of Form 1040... I don't think that that applies in my case, since I have never taken a withdrawal from my RRSP, early or otherwise. All that I've done is transfer component GICs from the RRSP at Bank 'A' to another RRSP at Bank 'B' when the component GIC reached maturity, rather than sim...

Ahhh! I see. Line 30 would HELP me not HURT me? Gotcha. Thanks.

Re: Early withdrawal... No problem there; I've never taken any funds out of my RRSP, only transferred between two RRSPs. My wife, bless her, is taking me over to meet the bank's financial advisor and will get the RRSPs converted to RIFs, which action, no doubt, will open two or three other cans of w...

Hi, Nelsona... I've always used the accrual method, ever since doing my first RRSP declaration on my U.S. taxes a lot of years ago, via the 1040X. I discovered waaaayyyy back, that, unlike Canada, which told me that they only wanted to know about my U.S. IRA's when I started to withdraw the funds, t...

Hi, Nelsona... I see your point, now. Thanks. For my non-RRSP GICs, I do just what you suggest: I declare them on my U.S. taxes when I get the T5 interest statement from the bank after the GIC matures. It's still OK, though, in terms of the GICs in the RRSPs and the Form 8891, Line 10a, situation to...

Yeah, that's what I would prefer to do _ get an entry on my bank statement at the end of each reporting period, every six months in the case of the aforementioned Bank 'A', that says: "Oki-doki, buddy, your RRSP got this much interest this year: CDN$ X". Unfortunately, as of this writing, ...

Thanks, nelsona. That's super, and by treating the CDN$ 100 Transfer Fee as a non-event, it actually reduces my interest income a wee bit, since I had been computing the value for Line 10a, "Interest income", as this: Year End Balance - Year Begin Balance - Contributions + Transfers Out + ...

In transfer a component GIC from Bank 'A' to Bank 'B', Bank 'A' dinged me for CDN$ 100 as a "Transfer Fee", which Bank 'B' did not (yet) compensate me for. Two questions: 1) On Form 8891, in which the Article XVIII election was NOT taken, how does one account for the Transfer Fee at Line 9...

Many thanks!

I can't begin to tell you what a sense of relief you've given me. Yours is the first response that I've gotten that makes any sense to me, this after wading for days through the IRS web site and speaking with the Philly international tax office twice, the first one ending in them telling me to call ...

I'm a dual citizen resident in Canada since '88. In all the years of filing Form 8891 and it's hand-composed predecessors, I never invoked the Article XVIII election to defer U.S. income tax on RRSP income but, rather, included all of the interest income in Schedule B over the years, letting the Sta...