Non-Resident Bank account in Canada?

[agnelson]

Serbinski's information is out-of-date on this issue. His website is really old. IT-221 was revised a few years ago and this two-year criteria (which as i always point out was for non-treaty countries) no longer applies.


The forum on that site, on the other hand is kept up to date, and all your question are already answered there, and if not, your new questions will be answered. This is a travel forum, not tax.

[rsibley]

Ok, thanks, I will do some digging in the serbinski forums.

[Steven]

Steven also goes on to say: "Also another tip is to state you left on 31st December". This is what made me think that it's possible to decide when you want your departure date date to be.

If you can. I didn't mean you could lie about it, but it does make things easier from various perspectives if you can legitimately say you left at the end of the year because it is a complete tax year.

There is a little bit of wiggle room there because it takes a bit of time to physically move your stuff, ties, wife, whatever from one country to another so you can to a limited extent choose your departure date but you can't state it fraudulently.

Tax treaty or no tax treaty, CRA likes to decide these things the way it works out best for them, not you. If deeming you resident works for them, then they'll do it and you have to point to the tax treaty. If hammering you with departure tax works for them, they'll do it.

Been so many threads and such on here over the past couple of years where people have ended up being done over by the CRA either way. "Oh, you left, you must owe us departure tax." "Oh you claimed child benefits, that means you must be resident so we're going to deem you resident and claim back taxes for all those years."

Just depends which bureaucrat you're dealing with.

[agnelson]

That is why consistent behaviour on the part of the taxpayer is the best defense:

You move, you advise any Cdn payors that you are non-resident, you cancel all benefits (GST, CCTB, DL, OHIP) that are reserved for residents, you establish ties in your new country (home, school, job, DL), file one's Cdn departure return on time the following april, and report and pay tax in your new country as a resident.

It's worked this way for years.

As steven says, it's when one tries to play both sides of the fence that one will get burned. "forgetting" to notify RRSP manager, cashing CCTB, claiming UI, not filing departure return, choosing 1040NR. Brings trouble.