Converting Canadian defined contribution retirement plan

[charlesp]

I am a dual Canadian-US citizen living in Canada, and I recently retired from my job at a Canadian university. I will very soon have to decide what to do with my employer-based defined contribution pension plan, e.g. a locked-in retirement account, a Prescribed Retirement Income Fund, etc. In making this decision, I would like to know if there is anything I should beware of vis-a-vis US taxes (e.g. anything that would trigger a tax bomb). Thanks!

[nelsona]

Nothing that I know of.

While living in Canada your pension monies will be taxed a maximum 15% in US at the time you take the income out of the pension realm (which will be covered by your Cdn tax). If you live in US, your Cdn pensions will be taxed at15% which will be credited on your US taxes. Whatever you do in terms of transferring/changing the monies into other forms of pension, will be a non-event US tax-wise.

If and when you create a pension account that YOU control (LIRA, etc), you will have FBAR and FATCA reporting requirements, but this doesn't give rise to any taxes.

[charlesp]

Great, thank you for the informative reply.