Taxation and Immigration Issues for Canadians in the US

Well, hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of what's Next with Retirement. This is Craig Weir. As the announcer said coming up, I just thought I'd repeat it for those of you that are a little hard to hear an A. So I got Jerry Scott with me today. Today's. Today's show is focusing on a very unique group of people. I know we all think we're unique in all kinds of ways, but this is really a very unique show in that we're focusing specifically today on a group of people that are Canadians that are working here in the United States, working and living in the United States. But maybe you're going to end up back in Canada with their own folks. So with me on today's show is a guy that I've just met probably a month ago, had several really nice conversations. So Jerry Scott from Vancouver, right?

That's correct. Vancouver, Canada.

That's right, Vancouver, Canada. So welcome to the show, Jerry. I appreciate the education you've given me over the last month or so, this unique set of circumstances we're going to talk about.

Yeah, you as well, because I am a, I become a fan of Craig's in the very short term. We've enjoyed his readings, his books, he's published. And, and we know there's a lot of Canadians that do want to come home. As beautiful as the United States is, maybe Canada is a little bit more beautiful. So.

Well, probably is in different areas. We've been to Banff and we've been to Vancouver and we've been out to the Islands and we spent a really nice weekend up in Whistler one time several years ago. Just fell in love with it. But you know, as you and I were talking before we started the show, you know, you're from Canada, I'm from the US but as you mentioned, you know, we're, we're pretty much all the same. I mean, people are the same around the world, aren't they? We all kind of, kind of things out of life. Yeah, we do.

And, and just to, to educate your listeners as well is that, yes, we are Canadian, but we're very fortunate. We get to spend a lot of time in Maui. So where I, I call myself a part time American, if there is such a thing. Canadian citizen, Canadian resident, but a part time Hawaiian living in beautiful Maui.

Well, you know, I think the more human beings are willing to kind of come together and sit down and just talk and share who they are and their ideas and they have if they can do it civilly. I think we realize that we're all more the same than we are different. We. We have certain things that maybe drive wedges and cause us to think a little differently. I learned a really big lesson on this 25 years ago. I guess it was so or so as a part of a church, and this is way before the day of the Internet. And I was in. I led a political action group. And so we got all these people together, and our job was to try to represent the values and the things that were important to us inside of a Christian religion sort of thing. And so I loaded. I guess There were 200 of us, loaded us all up on a bus, and we went to Austin, the capital of Texas, and we met with two state representatives that were sitting at that time. One was probably the most conservative in. At the time, and the other was probably what we would say today, the most liberal here in. In the state of Texas. Now, 25 years ago, liberal meant something totally different than it means today, and conservative even meant something totally different. But we sat in a room, and those guys educated us. And one of the things that they said has stuck with me all these years, they said, you know, we don't see politically eye to eye on a lot of different things, but we go to the effort of every week we have lunch together, and about once every month, we enjoy each other's company. We get our families together, and we get out to either his lake house or my beach house, and we just hang out. And he said, you know, that's the way that we get things done is I respect him as a human being who sees the world a little differently, and he respects me. But he said that's how we get things done inside the state Capitol, is that we see each other's differences, but we find ways to build bridges and to make sure that nobody's excited, but everybody is satisfied with the results. Man, I don't know how things are in Canada, but here in the US we need a whole lot of more of that attitude going on, especially this year in a presidential election year.

Well, you know, just to add to your story, there's a great book that was written. It was in. It's called the Rentless Wave, and It's a John McCain story. And I, as a young kid, we lived on the 49th parallel, which basically separates Canada from the United States. If you draw a straight line, we were actually part of the United States. But if you zigzag that line so that we would get all of Vancouver island, we would be considered to be Americans. So the book, the Best part of the book, and I recall this story many times and like I was always gravitated to US politics. But the book, the Rentless Way John McCain Story, one of his counterparts was Teddy Kennedy and he said listen, we've agreed to disagree on everything. At the end of the day we are friends and at the end of the day we are going to put our country first. And I don't know if politics in the United States has that same view or that same oh no, no, no way.

Yeah, no way. It's totally polarized. But one thing that Canadians and Americans have in common is none of us like paying too much in taxes, do we?

Well, you're not we just had our budget release last week and I'll tell you there is a if the orders weren't crowded Canadians leaving and moving on through the United States, it could happen. It really is a was was messing with capital gains and that is supposed to be separate out in Canada. Do you can tax people, Marginal rates can go higher, brackets can go higher, but do not mess with capital gains which right now currently is 50% tax free. 30% enters your your marginal tax rate. Well now as of January on June 25, the budget is telling us that it's going to be for corporations. There's a lot of little if you read behind and read the whole thing, I think it's, it's manageable. But on corporations, it's case going to be 2/3, it's going to be taxable and on the personal side, there's a $250,000 exemption. You can make it, it's going to be 50, 50. Anything above that is going to be 2/3 is going to be capital gains at Montana straight.

Well, good luck with that. The thing that occurred to me this morning, just kind of prepping for our conversation was that I've learned a few things since you and I had our very first conversation that I really wasn't even aware of. I let my fingers do the googling and I discovered that there are almost a million Canadians living in and working in the United States. And I would have never guessed that it was that big a number. That's in fact the US Is probably at no surprise the country with the largest number of Canadians living here. But the part, the problem that you pointed out to me is that when those Canadians decide to go back home, they have a significant challenge facing them. And before we get too much into the weeds on that, I, I, I'd like you to tell us just a little bit about kind of your Business and because you have a very unique specialty with the, with the Canadian folks. So tell us a little bit about that, just as a setup first, if you don't mind.

Yeah. So basically we're going to tell two stories on who Jerry Scott is and what he does. And the first story is I work for a. I'm a certified financial planner, charter planning counselor on the US Side, certified financial planner on the Canadian side. I'm licensed as a portfolio manager in Canada and licensed as a portfolio manager in the United States. So we've got IROC license and then we have fin licensing as well. So we have this very, very unique and rare specialty of dealing with not just the Canadian tax and Canadian immigration, but dealing with US Tax and US Immigration. So you take these two advisors, one on the Canadian side and one on the US Side and you combine them together and you come up with Jerry spot. So that's basically what we do now. That's what we do with, with a firm which is called Raymond James. Raymond James came to Canada in 2001 by a firm called Gold Lamb McDermott. And we really have been able to survive one of the only acquisitions that Americans have made in Canada that has survived. And Raymond James, I've talked to Tom James, one of the founders, many times, and he said, we realized it wasn't United States, it was Canada. And we're going to let them function like a Canadian investment firm. And Raymond James in US has had incredible success on the, on the, on the Canadian side, which very few American firms have done. Merrill lynch tried to do it when they bought Biv and Wallen back in the mid-90s. It was, then it lasted. That was our second go around. Didn't last. We're not as wealthy as Americans. You know, you got a couple hundred dollars in your pocket, you're considered to be a high net worth person in the United States. It has to be a couple billion dollars. That's the big thing. Sorry, that's the big thing. The difference between what we can do, we can license. Raymond James owns Raymond James Chandra. And under Raymond James Chandra we have this exemption which there's a handful of advisors that are licensed in both countries. And, and the platform is there to take care of not the solicitors in the United States, but to manage those Americans coming up to Canada or those Canadians returning home. So that's the professional side of what we've done. Now the other thing, if your viewers are not familiar with this, Canadians fly south, it's rainy, it's snowy. We live in. IGLOOS it really is long up here in the north. So what a lot of us Canadians do is we escape the terrible weather and we basically take advantage of the sunnier climates in Palm Springs, Scottsdale, Maui, which our family spent a lot of time in, Florida, Carolinas, you name it, Texas, Port Aransas. Yeah. So as a, as a Canadian, United States and Canada really do have a very good relationship. I know from time to time, depending on who's the Prime Minister of Canada, who's the President, there could be some, some bickering going on. And ball should be as high on the Mexican side and it should be only Canadians trying to keep us Canadians out. But the truth of it is why Canadians will fly down south, they fly down on what they call a V1 visitor letter, a visa, and we're able to spend six months in United States. So that's an immigration point of view. But United States is one of two countries in the world where they don't just tax you on your residency, but on your citizenship. So if you spent too much time. So now we're talking about tax. If you're a Canadian and you spend more than 183 days over three years, the Americans is IRS could deem you as a US citizen for the purpose of paying tax. And remember, the United States will tax their citizens on worldwide income. So it doesn't matter. All your income is earned in Canada. If they deem you as a US Person for tax purposes, you're going to have to pay tax on all that income. So about eight years ago, I started learning all these rules prank and I came up with an app and it's called the, it's called the Snowbirds US Day Tracker. So there's a three year formula that you have to track all your days. And the formula is basically, let's say, for example, we're looking at 2023. You count a day, a full day for 2023. For 2022, you count 130 of those days. And, and for 2021, you count 16 of those days. So you take all these numbers and you put them onto the fast forward and you cannot exceed 183 days over three years. And if you do, you gotta be very careful that you actually file this form of the IRS. It's called an 8840. Then you've got closer ties to Canadian. So where do you vote? Where's your, where's your car? Where's your school? Where's your church? Where's your, you know, all these Canadian questions? On that IRS form. And I always tell people, as they're filling out the form, it's, the answers are Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada irreplicitized. So we built this, we built this app to help these snowbirds, including myself. We, we built a, a platform which really was based on education. And we want to make sure that Canadians understand there's immigration issues. When you're spending time in this beautiful country of the United States, there's immigration concerns and there's tax concerns. So we built the app and because we're licensed on both sides of the border, we became this, I'll use the Hawaiian word, the big kahuna of cross border issues. So we built this app so that Canadians can really understand immigration and acts. Keep them separate, don't wind them together, because you're going to confuse me if you put them two together. And we just try to educate these snowbirds that are going down south. Now. There was a great comment made by Steve Jobs. I think a lot of people like to write business plans and try to educate, you know, execute business. Steve Jobs said it was almost impossible to do, but what he did realize that when you look backwards, your vision, the dots will connect yourselves on how to build something. So we built the apps. We built an app called the Canada Silver Table State Tracker. Canadians going down south. And then you made a comment, there's a million Americans going Canada. We go off another app, follow the Canada Physical Presence Tracker. You move from United States to Canada, you get your PR card. It's a lot easier to become a citizen and in Canada than it is a Canadian to become a citizen in the United States. So we built this, we built a podcast around it. And we're very fortunate to have you on our podcast. A couple months ago, I think Craig and I could probably go on where we both have the gift of the gap and we find out we're brothers from different mothers and we live in and different mysters too, by the way. I got to be careful clarify speaking affairs. Two bees in the same pot of it. Craig has done something that I find very, very interesting and that he's able to help all these people that add these IRAs and do backdoor strategies and, and all Craig is ready to do is a people tax. And that's.

Yeah, yeah. But you know, Jerry, you pointed out a really, it's a really big deal for the, the people that you speak to and that your message goes through. You know, when you, when you first called me, I was totally unaware of the issue. I mean, I I've spent a career just talking about, talking to. In my little, my little world, Americans who had these large, had accumulated, worked a long time, saved money, compounds to be a bunch of money and then they think they're done only to realize when required minimum distributions start coming that taxes are going to be the single greatest expense of their life. And that's just from an American perspective. And what you brought up to me was Craig, do you realize what that means if they move back to Canada? So why don't you educate the people listening in. What does that mean to them if they're a Canadian citizen or if they're moving back to Canada? How is this problem compounded because of that Canadian influence?

Well, as complicated as it may sound, there is a treaty between the United States and Canada and it's there to protect individual people so that they're not double taxed. So we'll use an example of a person who's spent 30 years in the United States and let's say that they're, you know, they're on a, they're dual citizens. Either their parents or they went through the process of green card work for an employer and then they got so upset with politics that they took their, became a citizen for the purpose of, of casting their vote. Well, now they move back to Canada and they're a dual citizen. Now we mentioned at the top of your podcast, if you're an American living in Canada, you just don't file one tax return. You're going to find two tax returns and it gets very complicated. And once again, I'm always going to tell people, I'm not an immigration lawyer, I'm not an accountant. I know enough information to be dangerous, as they say. But you're going to have to file as a US Person, you move to Canada or you're a Canadian coming home and you're a US person, you're going to have your IRAs and your 401ks and your 403s. You're going to have all these investments in the United States, your retirement investments. You have to find someone like an advisor that can be a cross border and manage both accounts. So you're going to now be in the United States. You can take money out of your IRAs, your RMDs, required minimum distributions. Now they're going to hold back 15% and that is taxable in Canada as well at higher rates in Canada. You're going to get, you're going to get foreign tax credits. Yes, you paid the irs. Now you're going to take that foreign tax credit, you're going to offset it. Any taxes all to Canada, but then you're going to have to pay a little bit more tax as well because we do have high tax rates in Canada. And yes, it is perfect out here. We have free health care. As Americans like to say. We're going to have to stand in line for a very long time to get that free stuff that we have up here. Yeah, so that's the big problem. When we started talking about IRAs, we started thinking, holy cow, it's going to be taxed at a lot higher if I take it out, if I move back to my home country or maybe I'm an American, I steal one of those beautiful Canadian girls and I'm going to marry her and I have a chance to become a Canadian. I'm going to have to file two tax returns and I'm going to have to pay higher taxes. And even with the treaty there to assist you to make sure that there's link up with taxation, a lower rate in the United States is just going to be used as a credit but you're still going to have to pay higher taxes instead of. And that's where you and I all of a sudden the forces connected to us and we said, okay, we're going to. Boy, it's got to be something. This strategy, what Craig's doing makes a lot more sense for a Canadian who decides to move home providing we have a bit five years or at least two or three runaway to be able to help. This is planning for it that Canadian or American moving back to United States, promoting to United States for the very first time.

Yes. No, anything they get converted is to their, to their good. You know, if somebody's listening this and they plan on retiring, moving back to the family in Canada next year. It's not too late. There's, it's still worth doing. It's still worth running the numbers on just to see what's there for you. But like Jerry said, that anytime you're planning anything, the more time you have, the better. There are a lot of people that talk to us, they call our advisors and they are of the opinion that because their tax rate is so high, they're in the here in the United States. Let's say they're a high income earner, they're at the peak of their career, they're making a lot of money. There's this false belief that they should wait until they retire because their tax rates are going to be lower and nothing could be further from the truth when you run the numbers on it, because those people tend to also have larger 401k and IRA balances. And that larger amount of money, if it grows 5% this year, they've added maybe another $100,000 to the total that has to be taxed. So waiting. I have never seen an instance yet where waiting was the right decision. So you take that person who's worked here in the US for 30 years, and they're going to go back to Canada now. They're going to. They got to figure out, how do I, how do I, how do I. What strategy do I use to get this to a Roth IRA in the best time frame, not the fastest, but what's the right strategy? Sometimes it's four or five years, sometimes it's eight or ten years, but rarely does that strategy work at your current tax bracket, is what we tell people. And we get that proven to us over and over. Now, if somebody has a more modest ira, a few hundred thousand dollars, then probably they're better off not to do accelerated Roth strategies, but for the, the Lions share, the folks that we try to give our message to, they're much better off if they're what I call the IRA millionaire. They're a lot better off to get a program and get it done. And what you're really saying is that not only are things very complicated when somebody is going to come back to Canada or move to Canada, but it's also more expensive. And so there's even more, if you will, using a good Southern term. There's a lot more sicum in the, in the motivation to get it done sooner rather than later. Is that, yeah, square.

And the biggest thing that people have to be careful with is, and this is mistaken, I always tell people on our podcast, which is a Snowbirds, Snowbirds expat radio podcast to build on Spotify and Apple and Iheart, all these great streaming services. The real key here is that to make sure that you do this in the United States, you're. You're loading up your Roth. And when you do come to Canada, once this strategy is settled and you've done all these things and Craig has done a great job for you, spent tons of money on there on the resources and the intelligence, but on your spreadsheets, this is not an easy task to confirm that this is a, a wonderful strategy. Before you go and you do move out in Canada, you have to make sure. And this gets missed a lot. And I always tell people on our podcast, our podcast is not intended for the dude themselves, that audience out there, Hey, I learned all this stuff from Jerry Scott and we use that term. I had enough information to do a lot of damage. Our podcast is about connections and education, connecting people with the right people. We have the opportunity to work with all these wonderful people across the country, the United States and in Canada. So we always tell people you need to have a good immigration lawyer and a good cross border account. But when you do move back to Canada, the most common mistake that Americans make is you need to file an election on your, on your Roth IRA with cra, out with the irs. But now you're in Canada, you need to file that, that election and that's called the Canada Revenue Agency cra. And if you don't do it.

All.

Those non, all those gains and everything that you have in your Roth could be seen as taxable. So Craig is at a great job for you. But then you try to do that last little piece on your own and you just made a terrible mistake. So there's an election that needs to be filed as soon as the calendar year that if you move there In September of 2023, by 2024, when you do your tax returns in Canada, you're April 30th. United States for the average person is April 15th. So by April 30th, you want to make sure that you're filing that election so that all those gains that are going to be coming out of your Roth IRA are going to be tax free in Canada. And I don't know if we can, how often we get to use the word tax free.

Yeah, well, you don't get to, you don't get to use it here in the States very much either. So, you know, I like to try to, we, you and I have similar themes in the, in the podcast and a lot of the information we put out, I really try to make it educational. Certainly we have a business to run and we like to, we like to see new clients come in the door. But I think both of us kind of live our lives that from a perspective of abundance, there's so much business out there and people to help that I don't have to have every single last one of them. I just, we're just there for the folks that seem to see the world the way we do and have a problem that we can help them solve. And I, in looking at the different podcasts that you've done, I, I, I think you do a lot of the same thing. I mean, we've had people on that offer syndications on alternative investments that we try to help people see the benefits of having some of those alternative investments in a Roth as opposed to in their brokerage account, you know, or even in their IRA where they're going to pay taxes on it. And there's benefits, as you just said, to finding the right attorneys up there for the folks that are listening in that are Canadian or planning on going to Canada. But the other thing is that the services that you offer through Raymond James and through your Canadian counterpart are also going to be really valuable because there are both sides of the border. They're going to have to be dealt with the rest of their life. Is that right, Jerry?

Yeah. And you know, I, I had a very interesting conversation with my son. Lobby joined our business, joined our firm. Our firm is called Snowberg wealth management. It's a IFS agency under the Raymond James umbrella. IFS stands for Independent Financial Services. So we are 100% drinking the Kool Aid of Raven Drains and, and I tell people we're not drinking the Koolaid, we're swimming in, we're swimming in it. I mean we really, the company that we work with and who represents the back office and making sure that our clients are very well looked after from a compliance point of view, from a suitability point of view. But you know, we've been in this cross border space for about eight years now. And I have to tell you, if you're just an advisor from time to time, sadly you get turned into a commodity fees and performance. And I, I'm never going to tell you that fees and performance are not important. But there is a lot said where there's a lot of similarity between what we're doing and what Craig is doing is we really are helping people. It's very, very complex. So that an American moves up to United States, moves up Canada here, their broker dealer is going to fire them right away because they don't have the exemption to work for the Canadian in the United States. A lot of times these are long term relationships that are stuttered with advisors that these people love, but they don't have the exemption and they're being told that story. We're going to have to suspend your account, cash it in, whatever the case is. Now if you could imagine, you're fortunate enough to retire at age 57 and your firm in the United States think, but we're going to have to let you go over cash accountant. You're under that 59.5 years of age, you're going to get a 10% penalty plus 30% maybe without I mean you've just got your retirement account whacked in half and there it might not be taxed on the Canadian side. So we don't think the total second half they might leave you with about 30, 40% of your entire IRA intact. And yes US dollars go a lot further in Canada than they do in the United States. But yeah my son in law was very, very. He gets so excited to say we get to help people and it's very complex but we do and you know I. Yeah so the values of being a good advisor, you know we learn from our parents, you know looking after the pennies, the dollars will take care of themselves. Compared to all the world is small how we we end every podcast but yeah it's pretty exciting what we do because it's not boring and we're learning every day how complicated this cross border thing is.

Yeah well if somebody happens to be listening and they are not Canadian or they're not American moving to Canada but they maybe need some of the things that we don't do money management and they maybe need some implementation help and those kinds of things. Do you work with people that are. That are not the Canadian Snowbirds or is are you. Is your practice just limited to the people that have that interest in their life?

No, I. I think well first of all that that demographic that you just explained is becoming gigantic. As you said a million, you know 10% with would be a hundred thousand people you're working for which would be physically impossible. But at the end of the day people find us through their accounting firms through their immigration offices via both sides of the quarter. We've got very well known through the podcast of the Stonebird expat radio podcast. We do have a website called Stonebridge USA Tracker as for all Stonebridge organic and you'll see more and more information that's available. We try and make sure that we're helping people on the educational side and getting in touch with with the right professionals. We never more than anybody who reaches us through the smuggard US State tractor platform but they can reach as that we have Smuggler's wealth management on call and that is really open up to not just people with restrictions, Frostburg restrictions but some of the families and you got to be very careful because of licensing we don't solicit, we don't have an office in the United States but a lot of families that have got to know me because I am a. I love partying with Mike. So I'm an avid golfer. I Play at a full Chief Manmade at Maui and Vancouver Golf Club up here in Vancouver. I'm a good day. Sometimes I'm really good and sometimes I'm really bad. But I'm there to integrate you. I've got some great jokes for you, Craig. And sometimes they're for the church crowd and sometimes they're from the truck tires that I'm a bit of a chameleon that way. But yeah, they can find us through the Snowbird Wealth Management.

Good, good.

And we're here to help.

Well, is there, is there anything that we maybe have uncovered that these folks that have this Canadian, the cross border interest that. I mean I know that there's a ton of stuff out there, but just on a basic level, is there anything that we haven't covered today that really needs to be said before we go?

Yeah, I think there's a lot of things going out. And when American leaves United States, you have to make sure you exit the country properly. When you're a Canadian moving out of the States, you have to exit the country properly. There's a lot of people out there that are trying to America's moving out to Canada and they try and use their brother's address, their mother's address, their uncle's address, their daughter's address. They're trying to use that American address to say, hey, I can continue to work with I, my US person. It might work fine on your IRAs and your 403s and your 400, 401ks, but you gotta remember when you move to Canada, we want tax money if you're going to be here and we're going to provide all these services for you. But the biggest thing that people try and do is that they, they try and cut corners. And as mentioned, this podcast is not for you to do it yourselfers. This is very, very complex that he only. I don't know if the IRS trust people. I think they do. I don't know how common it is, but the CRA will throw you in jail because it's illegal. It's illegal to not pay tax. It's not illegal to structure yourself to pay less tax. You have that right. You do have to pay tax. So I always tell people, be very, very careful. Make sure you do get involved in the right people make. Ukraine has devoted his career to helping people on the broad strategies. And of course we are very, very committed to what we do for Americans, Canadians. And like I said, I don't want to use the word part time American, but the Hawaiian Friends of have adopted me as a. I get more rousing than I'm the Canadian. But we've able that they've gained their trust that they, they ask us about so many things. Oh, you know, how far is it for them to move? And, and, and even just assisting them on the US Side, I gotta be careful not taking drops away from all those great titles of valley. But sometimes they want to deal with somebody who doesn't know their business other than there's a friendship.

Yeah, yeah. Living on an island can have some, some downsides of everybody knows what's going on.

Yeah, exactly.

Look, you know, Jerry, you and I are probably going to do this several more times, but I, I really appreciate your time today. I'm going to put the link to your wealth management firm and probably references to your apps that you have down in the show notes here of the podcast. So, you know, if you're out there and you're one of those guys that are. Or ladies that are thinking about moving out to Canada, you need some representation in a lot of different areas. Jerry can, can hook you up with those and help you on his side of it. And if you're a Canadian and you're thinking about going back to Canada when you finish working or retiring, there's just a lot of things that you need to be thinking about and a lot of things that you need to be doing, and you don't wait until six months beforehand to get the best outcome. So whether it be Jerry helping you on his end of it, or we have the honor of helping develop some strategies, whether it be financial planning or Roth conversion tax strategies on the front end, I'm sure we would work hand in hand with Jerry to make sure that you get the best outcome that you possibly can. So, Jerry, thank you again. And it's always, it's always fun. I look around and it's, gosh, we've already been jabbing for a while. We probably both need to get back to work or the rest of the crew is going to come looking for us, right?

That's exactly right. Well, we appreciate your time and we love what you do. And yeah, thank you very much.

Yeah, well, thank you, too. Okay, everybody, I hope you have a great rest of your week. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, there is obviously riveting information comes out every week, and we want you to be first in line to know when that comes out. And if you like this kind of stuff and you like educational stuff, click the subscribe button and go check out our YouTube channel, go to our website. Gosh, there's just all kinds of things out there. You can see podcasts, books, educational content all over the place. Have a great rest of your day. God bless.