Hi David,

My question to you concerns my husband and filing his American income in Canada. My husband is a permanent resident, we have just recently had a child and need to file taxes to apply for the Child Tax Benefit. My husband lives in Canada but works in the U.S. (he has been a permanent resident for 3 years now). He does not make any income here in Canada. My question is how do we file his taxes? Is this something we can do on our own and if so where would we find the appropriate form for this?

Thanks for you help,

QUESTION:

For someone who already has a holdings company set up for an operating
business, is there any advantage or disadvantage to carrying your first real
estate investment property in the limited company? Assume that the holdings
company does not have any employees and the operating company which is not
related to real estate only has 2 employees.
Thank you for your time.

This will be of value to our US readers and our Canadian readers can look at it and "only wish".

Imagine, getting it worked out in 120 days. I have letters out I have been waiting for a simple answer for over a year.

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ingram

QUESTION:

How do i collect the tax money retained by a casino in the USA.

Hello,

I have a number of questions regarding taxation. My wife is American and
I am Canadian. We live in the US. Who can I call/email
to get some answers. Please respond to both my work
(XXX) and home (XXXXX). If you want to call,
you can get me at (248) 47X-XXXX ext XXXX.

Hi David,

Good talking to you the other day. The questions I had sent on a couple of previous occasions follow:

I have two RSPs, one w/ RBC and one w/ CIBC. Both currently have my 'Canadian' (i.e. my mom's) address. I want to change them to my U.S. address, and RBC told me that offshore RSP holders can't transact in their RSPs other than to sell holdings. I'm fine with that.
The CIBC RSP, however, is worth less than $5,000, and I was thinking of closing it and transferring the holdings in kind, or the cash equivalent, to my RBC RSP. Presumably I should do that prior to putting through my address change. Given my being down here in the U.S., with my RSP reporting requirements, what do you think?

1] Is it "better" to just leave it as is; i.e. will a closure and transfer make for unnecessarily convoluted 2004 tax returns?
2] Would your fee thus be higher for me next year?
3] If I closed it and didn't transfer it to my other RSP and simply pulled the cash out and paid tax on it, would that also make for a convoluted (and expensive) 2004 tax season, i.e. would that be "worth" it?
4] In one (or more) of your emails to those of us on your distribution list, did you mention that you can make a case for U.S. residents to simply dissolve their RRSPs? Can further info be found @ centa.com?
Thanks as always,
A XXXXXXX

QUESTION:

Dear David,

My wife and I moved to Canada from the U.S. in Aug. 2002 for the purposes of continuing our education. She is a dual citizen and I am a US citizen with Canadian permanent residency. In April of 2003, before we found work in Canada, I withdrew $16,000 USD from an IRA (previously a 401K) to help pay for our living and school expenses in Canada. Our initial conversations with Canada Revenue Agency suggested that if the funds would not be taxable in the U.S., then they would not be taxed in Canada. Unfortunately, I should have pursued greater clarification on this subject. While I am exempt from US taxes because of low U.S. income and U.S. early withdrawal penalties because it was pulled out for educational purposes, Canada tells me that the money is taxable because it is an IRA. Whereas we should be getting back all of our Canadian tax paid, due to low income in Canada, now we may actually owe money because I have to report my IRA money.

1. Are there any exemptions that I can take advantage of other than the educational credits and the $1000 pension credit available on the T1?
2. Does my issue fall under article 18 of the tax treaty or can I qualify for article 20? And if it is article 18, am I responsible for tax on the full amount withdrawn or only a portion of the money? As this money was converted from a 401K to an IRA, I have paid no US tax on these funds.
3. The IRS has a $80,000 USD deduction on foreign earned income. Does Canada have an equivalent exemption?

Thank you for your time.

QUESTION: I am a Canadian who mran a DBA business then later, a USA corp. I
managed to earn and save 7 figures over 5 years. I have not filed a tax
return the entire time. How much trouble am I in? I have since sold the
business and want to re-enter the tax system but fear I am going to get
whalloped. How do I go about coming clean without losing my shirt?

QUESTION:

I recently did taxes for a citizen of Great Britian now living (and
working)in the U.S. He sold his house in England after renting it out for a
year. He is able to exempt part of the gain since it was his main residence
for almost two years and he sold it due to a job move. Our biggest problem
is the difference in valuation in the currency. When he bought the house,
the exchange rate was $1.50 lb for $1.00 U.S. When he sold the house, the
exchange rate was $1.65 lb for $1.00 U.S. That means he has a gain also due
to the exchange rate. My question (finally, I get to my question). Can this
gain be considered part of the gain for sale of the house (and therefore
excluded as part of the gain on the house) or does it have to be considered
an investment gain (a separate transaction) and put on Schedule D? I wrote
to the IRS but they completely ignored the question and just sent me to a
publication that had nothing about this.
Thanks you for your help.