Working in the USA after giving up Green Card

[Fug1]

We have recently returned to Canada after working in the USA for 10+ years. We relinquished our green cards and our last USA tax return will be 2019. We are not "covered expatriates".

I've heard that we need to avoid staying in the USA for more than 30 days (per year, I think) for the next 10 years if we want to avoid having to file a USA tax return for that year. I can't seem to find a source for that claim. Is that true?

Also, my wife will occasionally be travelling to the USA for meetings, less than 7 days per year total. Each trip will be 1-2 days maximum. The last time she made that trip, the US border guard told her she would need a work permit and denied her entry. Her company is working through the paperwork necessary to get her a work permit...we're not sure yet what type of permit would be required for these "business meetings" in the USA. If she does end up on some sort of Visa (TN, maybe?), how will that impact our USA tax obligations? Would we just need to file a return for the USA sourced income for that year? Does the fact that she previously had a green card complicate matters?

Thank you for any insights you can offer!

[Ron.Henderson]

Unfortunately there's no "US customs guy needs to stop being a dick" visa. Ridiculous.

If there are any stamps or stickers alerting customs to past green cards, you may be able to solve this problem with a clean Canadian passport.

Presumably you have US assets after 10 years down there so you'll need to play nice on the tax front, otherwise there'd be no reason to file returns regardless of how many days spent on business trips.

[Fug1]

We do have exit stamps on our passports, so that could've triggered a closer investigation. Now that she's been turned around once, our assumption is that they won't allow her in for any "business trips" without a work permit.

I'm mostly curious how this works from a tax standpoint, especially as former permanent residents. We need to file Form 8854 with our 2019 tax return to formally expatriate. At that point, we'll only have our IRAs/401k's left in the USA. Will this "temporary" work in the USA affect her ability to expatriate and declare herself not a "covered expatriate"? We really want to avoid a situation where we might forced to withdraw our IRAs/401k's.

Thank you.

[Ron.Henderson]

Based on past experience I don't find that the border guards read their own notes or apply the rules very consistently. I had the same "you need a visa for two days of meetings" BS lecture once, then he noticed a US birthplace and after a long lecture about needing a US passport, had to let me in. I ignored the lecture and have had no trouble on any subsequent trips, work or pleasure. However, if the inconvenience of being turned back is a serious problem, your wife could look into a visa. Otherwise try clean Canadian passports.

On the tax front, why poke the bear? If these are short trips for which your wife is not being paid directly from a US source, there's no record of any income. Presumably the IRS does not routinely pull entry and exit data for Canadians to determine whether or not they should be filing US returns. While you'd want to be careful given your US savings, I can't imagine it makes any sense to declare US income for a handful of days' business travel. Particularly if it would somehow mess up your clean exit after returning to Canada.

[bhmfinance]

thanks