Non-resident permanent resident renewal + tax? Help!

Ready to hear more about Canadian permanent resident tax and immigration residency? And being a non-resident permanent resident? All right!

Here's my situation - please, any advice is very appreciated.

I am a US citizen. Between 2002 and 2004 I was in Canada on and off as a visitor/student.

I married a Canadian citizen in 2004 while she went to school too, and received my Permanent Resident card in July 2005.

Then in August 2005 we went back to the US to my home state. For the past 5 years we have been predominately in the US. I just counted and I've spent about 340 days in Canada since getting the PR card - all of that "back home" with her family each summer.

As my PR card is expiring next month I'm kind of at a cross roads to renew it or not. Immigration wise - I am fine to renew. I have been with my spouse 99% of the days outside of Canada.

Tax wise - this is the problemo. I paid Canadian income tax for 2005, but have paid US tax every other year since then, and before that. A US/canada tax firm said to do that, so I did. After that I just got my normal US accountant to do my taxes and never filed anything to CRA.

I know Canada taxes permanent residents on worldwide income, but you can be a non-resident for tax purposes. And this is the problem...

...am I a non-resident permanent resident? Does that even exist?

If by renewing my Canadian PR card I am going to liable for back taxes for 4 years, I simply cannot afford to do so.

I've read about determining residency for tax purposes - it's based on "ties to Canada", etc. But it's pretty vague.

In the general case being a Canadian permanent resident means you have Canadian ties, but for me....

*US residency:
No Canadian bank account/retirement account. No Canadian income/property/cars. I never worked for a Canadian employer. Never got provincial health coverage.

My self-employed company is in the US. We bought a house here in 2009. My investments are held in the US. My pets, cars, etc.

My wife is a US permanent resident for 3-4 years now, and is applying for citizenship here.


*Canadian residency:
I got a Social Insurance Number after getting the PR card, and had a provincial driving license for a while. But then I changed it back to a US state to open some US bank accounts years ago.


So....yeah....

I am totally at a loss. After typing this all out, my situation looks like I really DONT have ties to Canada for tax purposes even though I have the card.

So should I renew it and not worry about how having the card will affect my tax status? Or is that not possible, and my renewing it I become a tax resident?

Or should I just let it lapse because I would owe back taxes?

Trust me, I never set out to do anything wrong here or "game" the system. I was just a young man in love with a beautiful Canuck, and we moved around a lot with a plan to try to BOTH get dual citizenship, and now 5 years later it's turned out to be harder than anticipated!

Thank you so so much for ANY input.

Your post is too long for me to read much past the errors, but just to clarify: Cdn taxes the world income of its residents. That's those physically residing in Canada. Citizenship or PR status is not an issue.