CANADIAN INCOME TAX

Unfortunately, since (a) Uganda does not have a treaty, and (b) your income is not taxed in Uganda, you will have no hope of being considered a tax resident of canada even if you divest yourself of everything you have in canada. Your RRSPs and savings, even your passport, are considered sufficient minor ties to keep you resident.

Numerous rulings have determined that one cannot give up Cdn tax residency without getting one elsewhere, which you are not.


Best move is likely to not bother fighting tax residncy, and use various other credits such as the Overseas employment tax credit.

Also, look into how CRA would tax your diplomatic income, since it is not specifically coming from the Cdn govt, it may be completely tax exempt (like IATA or UN income).

From the sounds of it the simplest option would be to remain resident in Canada for tax purposes. It sounds like you have the choice of moving your tax home to Switzerland but that probably isn't practical because you don't actually live there so getting a Swiss ID card and so on is impossible.

So you either no longer use your diplomatic status and form residential ties to Uganda or you remain a resident of Canada from the sounds of it. Either way you're going to have problems because there is no tax treaty in place with Uganda. So you either accept that you pay a lot of tax or have a variety of unusual and weird tax problems I'm afraid.

The fact you're in a diplomatic status makes it pretty hard to sever ties to Canada convincingly.

Agree. OETC will help.