Serbinski Accounting Firms

Each year, every single Canadian resident or citizen, has the treaty-given right to file a full-fledged US 1040, just like any other US citizen. In years that he does not have to (whether by IRS regulation, or by virtue of the residency tie-breaker), the Cdn can choose not to file in US (29 million ...

What was not relevant was your elaborate and convoluted cap gains calculations. This was merely an exercise in picking favourable exchange rates. Peters out of the East Coast wrote a great paper on why Cdns can use FEIE to exclude Cdn earned income in their US arrival year (meaning that one would ab...

You may be subject to sufficient other tax to duck below AMT, but I doubt it.

However your foreign income is used to determine AMT, thus your foreign tax credit may not help you.

Spend the $26 and get yourself Turbotax, eh.

<i>nelsona non grata</i>

By 'using software' I mean bona fide tax software, not a homemade spreadsheet. Another point: Most of your itemized deductions will go against your Cdn income, further reducing the Cdn tax usable as a FTC. There is also Foreign tax credit AMT, which prevents the tax on foreign income from being more...

The IRS, as opposed to CRA, likes one to use an exact exchange rate for each transaction. CRA allows one to use one rate per year if one wishes. For the numbers you are talking about, your exercise hardly seems woth the effort, and there is little of 'cross-border' interst in it. It is the FTC,FEIE,...

It is mathematically impossible for foreign tax credit to completely erase the US tax on the foreign income, as the US tax on your foreign income is at your marginal rate, but the foreign tax credit is at your effective rate. I'm serious about using software to do this, you are NOT doing it correctl...

Yup. Other than the mangement issue, the only other possible reasons to transfer it up to Canada would be: (a) estate tax issues: An RRSP would not be subjet to US estate tax, an IRA would. Additionally if one is married RRSP is completely transferable to spouse without immediate tax. This <i>might ...

One reason to give back your Cdn DL would be for the refund, if you were in a 'gov't insurance' province.

We got back over $100 when we returned our QC DLs, a few months after moving.

If you paid $10 for your DL, then that is not an issue.

<i>nelsona non grata</i>

IT-221 has indeed drastically changed, in 2002, especially the notion of 'deemed non-resident', an animal that was created by CRA in 1997 to 'force' fat-cats into non-residency to trigger their deemed dispo. The result, after the economic turn-down in 2000, was that deemed dispos dried up, and now b...

I agree with your exchange rate strategy. Be careful about the foreign tax credits, though. Use a tax program to calculate this, as you will likely find that you will not get much more than 1/2 of your Cdn taxes as a credit, once all the limits kick-in. If I was going to file full-year in your situa...

I'd say unnecesarily complicated. You bought a house at one US price and sold it at another. If you want to fold in the currency fluctuation, just do so as part of the cost basis and proceeds from the house transaction. Besides, unless you had very little Cdn income before you returned to US, filing...

It is NOT illegal to hold multiple licenses, unless the particular state/province pairing have such an understanding. My State for example is NOT PERMITTED to take or void a Cdn drivers license. So to cancel it I had to write to the Provincial Board, as I did with Healthcare. Note: Under the new ter...

It has been generally held that having one's child in Canada, ESPECIALLY when that one is attending school, is noit sufficient to tie one to Canada.

This becomes doubly true when one is in a treaty country, as the residency tie-breaker would hardly be affected by this.

<i>nelsona non grata</i>

Foreign tax credits CANNOT be carried forward or backwards in Canada, except for BUSINESS related income, so this does NOT apply here. As to the deductibility of transfers, the example I gave of severance pay is more apt than RRSP transfers, since the severance is included in income and what is put ...

No. Transfers to RRSP (such as from IRA, or from eligible severance pay, or as saresult of disolution of marriage) DO NOT count against the contribution room generated by earned income. By the way Serbinski seems to be censoring the url of the one accountant who is at the forefront of the IRA/RRSP i...