Mistakes expats make in Canada

For U.S. Citizen, you must remember that the IRS taxes you on citizenship and not residence. As a result, now that you are living in Canada, you must file both U.S. and Canadian tax returns.

That becomes the complication, as what rules that apply in Canada don't necessarily work when you consider your U.S. taxes.  In order to avoid paying extra taxes and minimize your costs for tax filing, careful planning needs to be done.  Contact me and I can assist you maximize your investment returns while minimizing your costs for tax preparation.

A law which is, in short, BS. I would hope that Congress will work with President Trump to repeal FATCA so that Expats don't get taxed twice!

Expats don't get taxed twice because of FATCA.  The problem is that the IRS taxes on citizenship instead of on country of residence.  There are only two countries that tax on citizenship:  US and Eritrea.  No other country taxes this way and as a result causes people that have residence in other countries nothing but headache due to the complications of tax filing to stay compliant.  Depending on where you live, you may not owe any more tax to the IRS, it might just be a case of the cost for the extra tax filing.  For example, in Canada, our taxes are slightly higher than those in United States and as a result something like 95% of the tax returns filed by dual Canadian/US Citizens don't pay any tax to the IRS.  The cost of filing on the other hand, vary anywhere from the do it yourself of $150 to very complicated business owners that can run up to several thousand.

The trick is to ensure that while living in Canada, you pick correct investments and set up the right type of bank accounts for your daily needs to simplify your tax return process.  By doing this, you can save significant dollars; all be it, Canadian dollars , it is still a savings.

If you live in Canada and you would like guidance on your investments and tax returns, I can help.