residing in the US & working in

My_question_is: Applicable to both US and Canada
Subject:        residing in the US & working in Canada
Expert:         taxman at centa.com
Date:           Monday October 30, 2006
Time:           10:08 PM -0500
QUESTION:
I would like to know what the implications are for being a Canadian Citizen
purchasing property in the US to use as a permanent residence while working
exclusively in Canada.
My husband and I are both Canadian Citizens working in British Columbia.  We
are wondering what the implications would be for us to purchase property in
Washington State to live in and commute across the border each day for work.
Our primary income would be from Canada, we are Canadian citizen's & we
would not be earning any income or displacing any US resident for employment
by purchasing the property to reside.
---------------------------------------
david ingram replies
It is unlikely that you can get a visa to live in the US on a full time
basis without a job offer for one or the other of you to work in the US.
You can apply for a US resident alien card but the waiting list is over 14
years long.
If one of you was not born in Canada (Free Ireland is good), you can put
your name in for the green card lottery and the US draws 40,000 names a year
from applications. Otherwise Canadian born individuals do not qualify for
the lottery.
Without a You can have a Vacation home in the US that you spend a lot of
time at but to be a legal visitor in that case you should have a bigger /
better home in Canada to prove to the USCIS that you are actually living in
Canada. There is a big advantage to staying in Canada because:
The second problem is that if you do manage to get into the US to live, you
will lose your BC Medical and even if you are working for the BC government,
you will also lose your extended medical benefits.  The reason is simple.
To qualify for extended benefits, you must be entitled to BC medical and to
qualify for BC Medical, you must prove that you are living (sleeping) in BC
more than 183 nights a year.  And BC Medical is tough. They will ask for
phone bills, credit card bills and co-operate with US Immigration to figure
out how many nights you spend where.\
There is always a hitch and the hitch is that to keep your green card for
the US, you have to prove you were in the US 183 nights and to keep BC
Medical, you have to prove you slept in BC 183 Nights.
You also do not save any income tax.  You will still pay full Canadian Tax
without the medical benefits associated with it and you will have to pay
anywhere from $350 to $700 US per month to buy an equivalent medical plan.
If you really want to go south, get divorced, both of you hang out in
Bellingham bars, marry Americans to get sponsored to the US, Get your green
cards and then get divorced and get back together.
If it sounds farfetched, I know of a couple who did just that. I feel very
sorry for the Americans they married who were not part of the plot and for
all I know, maybe they did just fall in love again. Who am I to have an
opinion.
Now that I have pointed out the hard part, I have at least thirty clients
who are doing exactly what you want to do.  However, they are all Canadian
who married Americans and are commuting back to their Canadian jobs.
They are nurses, mechanics, cooks, Company presidents, teachers, police
officers and even border guards.
I also have another forty or fifty who live in Canada and commute to the US.
In three cases, the commute is caused because the spouse is either not
allowed into Canada or not allowed into the US because of past criminality.
Hope this helps.  My advice would be to get a cheaper place in Point Roberts
or something and spend some good time there and most of your time in Canada.
David Ingram's US / Canada Services
US / Canada / Mexico tax, Immigration and working Visa Specialists
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