Questions regarding filing taxes for CRA as a Canadian TN visa holder working in the US

[hihihi316]

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone could help me with the tax filing for CRA as a Canadian TN visa holder working in the US. Here is my background/current situation.

I am a Canadian citizen who has been living and working in the US since July 2017 with TN visa (and my current TN visa is valid until July 2020). For the tax year 2018 (for which I am filing now for the US), my sole source of income was from my employment in the US and I have no source of income in Canada. I still have ties to Canada (my parent's home, my bank checking account, a credit card), but in 2018 I never returned to Canada and I don't know when I will be permanently move back in the foreseeable future, as I am married to a foreign national here in the US who's in the process of green card application through her employment (I am planning to renew my TN visa in 2020 to continue to work in the US). So here are my questions:

1) WIll I have to file tax for CRA for the income I made solely in the US in 2018? I have already filed taxes in the US for IRA for tax year 2018, and I have read somewhere in other forums that "if I have income only in the US, and I am physically in the US for 183 days or more (which is the case for 2018), I file income taxes in the US and not in Canada. " I am wondering if this is indeed true...

2) If I still need to file taxes for CRA, will CRA take the tax that I already paid for IRA into consideration, meaning I will have to pay the difference between US tax rate and Canada tax rate due to some sort of tax treaty between two countries? Or will CRA charge the full tax amount and disregard the tax I paid back to IRA?

3) As I already said, I don't know when or if I will ever go back to Canada (although TN visa's premise is I will be back eventually) since my spouse is in the process of obtaining green card, but if this doesn't work out, we will have to go back to Canada (will find out if the application is successful in 1 or 2 years). Could not filing taxes to CRA for 1-2 years while we are still in the US and paying for any owing taxes + penalty be even an option If we indeed decide to go back in the future? Or is this considered a criminal activity and will have any negative effects on my current canadian bank checking account... I don't want to do anything that's considered criminal activity obviously...

I would really appreciate any help on this... Thank you!!

[nelsona]

You should have, and still should file a departure return for 2017, with departure date when you left to go to work on TN.
Once this is done, you are finished with Cdn tax until your return to Canada.

[hihihi316]

Thank you very much for your reply! I am so sorry but I am not too familiar with "filing a departure/return" process... could you please elaborate more on how I go about doing this? Thanks!

[nelsona]

google this site or CRA website. Explained far too often to repeat.