Tax implications of being a US executor for Canadian Estate

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slpmom
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Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2018 7:31 pm

Tax implications of being a US executor for Canadian Estate

Post by slpmom »

My father recently passed away and I am named executor of my father's estate in Canada(my mom passed away a while ago). I live in the US (permanent resident). I was already managing his affairs as he had dementia and had educated myself on not only my responsibilities as his POA but thought I had the executor thing under control too. I recently came across an article that said a Canadian estate "should not have an out of country executor". I have talked to the accountant, the financial advisor and the lawyer all of whom are either saying "oh...yeah....that could be a problem...' or telling me to give up executorship to my brother in Canada. My brother does not really want nor have the time to do this. Something about the CRA seeing the estate as a "foreign trust" because of where it will be managed (me in the US). Can someone please tell me how bad this is? Like HOW MUCH worse will the taxes be? Will the IRS want a piece? Is this for sure or maybe that there will be problems? Estate involves a house worth 250,000 and RRSP and mutual funds of around 300,000. All assets are in Canada, he has lived his whole life there, no one is going to "contest anything", nothing was in anyone else's name but his... if that helps.
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