U.S. Expatriate Taxes In Canada

If you are a citizen or permanent resident of the United States, you are obligated to file U.S. expat taxes with the federal government each year, even if you are living across the border. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres (3.85 million square miles), making it the world’s second-largest country by total area. Canada’s southern border with the United States is the world’s longest bi-national land border. Its capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. As a whole, Canada is sparsely populated. In addition to the regular income tax return, you could also be required to file an informational return on your assets held in foreign bank accounts. While the U.S. is one of the few governments that taxes the international income of its citizens and permanent residents, it does have special provisions to help protect us from double taxation including:

Protax is the world’s leading U.S. individual international tax firm, specializing in the delivery of world class professional services to U.S. Expatriates.

Please visit our Country Tax Resource Guide for Filing Taxes as an American Living in Canada.

U.S. Expat Taxes in Canada

U.S. citizens and U.S. green card holders (resident aliens) have unique filing obligations, unlike the citizens of other tax jurisdictions. The U.S. imposes income taxation based upon citizenship, not based on tax residency and U.S. resident aliens are taxable on worldwide income for their lifetime unless they expatriate completely.

U.S. citizens and U.S. green card holders living and working outside the United States are required to file a U.S. tax return annually and report their worldwide income if they continue to meet the annually indexed minimum tax filing threshold amounts, consisting of the standard deduction and exemption.

Residing and working outside of the United States may permit the application of special tax laws and regulations when certain qualifications are met, permitting the offset of U.S. tax obligations in part or in their entirety. These rights of offsets are the result of the integration between the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), Housing Exclusion (HE) and/ or Housing Deduction (HD) available on Form 2555 – Foreign Earned Income and Foreign Tax Credits (FTC) available on Form 1116 – Foreign Tax Credit. The Foreign Tax Credit on Form 1116 may be considered if the foreign country has a foreign income tax.

At Protax Consulting Services, our primary goal and objective is to use these interplay of mechanisms – the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE), Housing Exclusion (HE) and/ or Housing Deduction (HD) –in combination to wipe out any U.S. income tax.

For more information, fill out our contact form here!