Tax Filing for a TN Visa holder

Hello,

First I would like to say that I had tried browsing the forum before posting this; however, even though I have found an abundance of useful information, I was not able to get a conclusive answer to my question... Hopefully someone can provide me with one.

Because I am not an expert in this field, I am not sure which information is relevant. So I am just going to try providing as vivid of a description as I possibly can.

Here is my situation.
- I lived in Canada from January to the end of August of 2008.
- I was a university student in Canada from January until the end of April of 2008.
- I moved to NYC on a TN visa in September and had been working here ever since.
- I had not earned any income in Canada in 2008.
- I had paid tuition in Canada during the time that I was in University.
- I do not own any real estate in Canada.
- I have some student loans in Canada.
- I do not intend on moving back to Canada any time in the near future. In fact, I am going to try to switch to an H1B visa as soon as I possibly can.

Question #1 - Do I have to file Canadian taxes for 2008?

Question #2 - If yes, then, assuming that I want to make NYC as my tax base, what exactly do I have to fill out in addition to the regular forms for Canada & US? (i.e. what forms do I have to fill out in order to avoid double taxation as per the Canada-US tax treaty?)

If you don't have any income in Canada for 2008 then you have nothing to report so you're exempt from filing a tax return, however you should inform the CRA of the date that you left.

On the US end you have to file a dual-status return (if you want to move your tax home to the US), which basically means zero on a 1040NR for the first part of the year and you pro-rate a 1040 for the second part of the year.

Read IRS publication 519 which explains how to do it.

If there's some deduction for repaying your student loan in Canada, you lose that by moving your tax home to the US because they don't care about foreign student loans.