Tax Implication to return Canada as a Canadian working 20+ years in US

[nachochip]

Hello everyone, thanks in advance for your help,

My wife and I are both Canadian citizens. I moved to the US on H1B/TN status around 2004, and later after getting married, my wife moved to the US on H1B around 2005. We both filed as non-residents with CRA at that time. About 7 years ago, my wife and kids moved back to Canada while I continued living in the US working on H1B. During these 7 years, I only had US income and filed taxes in the US only, with my US home under my name alone. I don't own anything in Canada, and have no Canadian driver's license, never used Canadian health insurance, and only have an inactive Canadian bank account with no activities for the last 20 years.

My wife, who worked in Canada in the last 7 years, filed her income in Canada and reported me as a non-resident spouse, including my US income to CRA for benefit calculations. Based on our combined income, we received no benefits from Canada in the last 7 years. My wife mortage her home solely base on her income under her name in Canada 7 years ago.

For family reasons, I transferred back to Canada in October 2024 with the same company but now under the Canadian payroll.

I want to understand my tax implications as I discovered I might have strong ties with Canada during the last 7 years since my family lived there. Do I need to pay back taxes to CRA for the last 7 years when I file my 2024 tax?

I found this excerpt on the Canada.ca website mentioning the tax treaty with US

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency ... anada.html

"If you have established ties in a country that Canada has a tax treaty with and are considered to be a resident of that country, but you are otherwise a factual resident of Canada (meaning you maintain significant residential ties with Canada), you may be considered a deemed non-resident of Canada for income tax purposes.
You become a deemed non-resident of Canada when your ties with the other country become such that, under the tax treaty that Canada has with the other country, you would be considered a resident of that other country. As a deemed non-resident, the same rules apply to you as a non-resident of Canada."


Do I understand correctly that based on this excerpt, since I was a US resident with solely US income and paying US taxes, then I a deemed non-resident even my family living in Canada, and my tax status would still be treated as a non-resident?

Thanks,

[nelsona]

Because you had already established US residency when your spouse returned to Canada, this did NOT automatically make YOU a Cdn tax resident.

You would only have become a tax resident of Canada if you made frequent, regular trips to Canada (like almost weekend). This would have shown that your "centre of vital interests" was in fact in Canada. US would lose the treaty residency tie-breaker, regardless of what you did in the US: working in US and paying US taxes does not necessarily make you a US tax resident.

Assuming this was not the case, and given that CRA never questioned your spouse's several returns on which you were treated as a non-resident, it is safe to assume that you remained non-resident throughout this period.

For 2024, you will simply file a "newcomer" tax return for your province, with an October return date.

[nachochip]

Thank you very much for the answer!!