QUESTION: We are Canadian citizens living in the US with green cards. We moved here about 11 years ago. I have worked and filed US income tax. My husband is self-employed in Canada as an agent's representative....selling US products in Canada. He was lead to believe that he only needed to file in Canada. We now know that is not true and want to correct our mistake. My husband filed as a corporation years ago but his accountant has always only treated his taxes as self-employed. His salary has never exceeded $55,000. CDN. I always filed married filing separate. My husband would travel back and forth every week or two.since airline travel was almost free..I worked for the airlines in customer service. I lost my airline job and my husband lost a large account which has forced us into considering bankruptcy in the US. We need to have 1040's for my husband, so thought we would have an international taxman file my husband's first US tax return and any canadian paperwork necessary. WE are totally stressed out especially after reading your information re being charged and fined for not filing US tax. Please help us take the correct steps in this situation. ============================== david ingram replies: I would be glad to help you with your problem. When coming forward the IRS asks for the last six years to be filed. That means I would need copies of his Canadian returns and copies of your returns for the last six years. i.e. 98, 99, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 - actually, at this point in time, we can likely drop 98. The good news is that I doubt if there will be any tax owing if we amend your return to make them joint returns. If we file him as Married filing separately, there "will" be AMT tax owing for sure because the exemption limit ran from about 22,000 to 29,000 over the last six years. If you can get them to us in the next week or ten days it will be much cheaper than three weeks from now when we will be really busy with the current tax returns. copy to George Arora CPA, MBA, MST David Ingram's US/Canada Services US / Canada / Mexico tax, Immigration and working Visa Specialists US / Canada Real Estate Specialists 4466 Prospect Road North Vancouver, BC, CANADA, V7N 3L7 Res (604) 980-3578 Cell (604) 657-8451 (604) 980-0321 Fax (604) 980-0325 Email to taxman at centa.com <mailto:taxman at centa.com> www.centa.com <http://www.centa.com> www.david-ingram.com <http://www.david-ingram.com/> Be ALERT, the world needs more "lerts" ============================== -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.2 - Release Date: 1/28/05 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.8.2 - Release Date: 1/28/05
