If you’re a U.S. citizen living in Canada, you might be frantic about the IRS tax crackdown and hefty fines if you haven’t been tax compliant. How fast can the IRS come after you? What are its enforcement powers in Canada, anyway? Turns out, Canadian law has a trick...

The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has generated a lot of attention in Canada. It recently became Canadian law,  as a part of the 2014 federal budget. FATCA requires Canadian financial institutions to send information about their US account holders to...

The United States has two tools to get information on accounts held by its citizens: FATCA and FBAR. Lots of attention has been paid to FATCA — less to FBAR (Foreign Bank Account Reporting). Its rules have been around since the 1970s. FBAR targets accounts that US...

Ben Franklin famously said that nothing in life is certain except death and taxes. One wonders, then, what Franklin would say about taxes due on death? US citizens living in Canada are subject to two different tax regimes on their death. For them, it would seem that...

Owning real property on both sides of the border can create a confusing tax situation. Consider this example. Stefan and Jane are married and live in Vancouver. Jane is a Canadian citizen while Stefan holds both US and Canadian citizenships.  In 1994,  shortly after...

Canada has a raft of registered plans. They all have different US tax consequences. Consider the following example. Julia is a US citizen living in Canada. She has an RRSP to save for retirement. She uses her Tax Free Savings Account to invest in some individual...

Common Canadian investments can inadvertently cause American tax problems for US citizens living in Canada. Let’s take a really common example. Jack is a 50-something US citizen married to Jill (a Canadian citizen) for 30 years. They have lived in Canada for 25 years....

Many US citizens in Canada want to be rid of their citizenship to avoid being subject to American tax rules. Let’s use an example. John is a Canadian citizen who lives in Ottawa. His mother was American, so John is a US citizen too. He keeps reading in the paper that...

The US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) has made waves in Canada since the 2014 federal budget made it Canadian law. It obliges financial institutions to report the accounts of US citizens to the Canada Revenue Agency, which passes the information on to the...

Canadians have invested over a trillion dollars in mutual funds, but the IRS has not issued guidance on how the estimated 1 million US persons in Canada should report mutual fund investments on their (mandatory) US tax returns. The general view is that a Canadian...