Canada's digital nomad remote work scheme

Well, cold and snowy enough anyway.

 

I grew up 10 miles from Mexico. This was certainly our experience growing up. People crossed in either direction to go to work, school, or to head back home. Cars in Tijuana had "Front BC" on their license plates, which was "Frontera Baja California." This meant they were tagged specifically to go back-and-forth. On the American side you saw these plates all day.

In many ways, Greater San Diego and Tijuana are one big metropolis, separated by the border, but united in culture, language, and commerce.

 

I THINK they will be subject to Mexican tax and get credit for any such payments on their Canadian tax return. They'll be assessed at Canadian rates and if the Canadian rate is higher, after the credits are taken out, they'll pay the difference.

 

Oh, how I LIKE that idea.

 

Ditto El Paso-Cd. Juarez.

 

I WAS WRONG. Here's the rule:

"If the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) establishes your residence status as a Canadian resident, you'll pay income tax on income earned anywhere in the world. Even if you spend some time working outside Canada, you'll still be liable to pay federal and territorial tax. The amount of money you pay as a tax depends on what you earn."

I guess residence is the key. With permanent residency in Mexico, one should be off the hook, I'd think.

 

But not Brownsville - Matamoros, right? From reading, I just get the vibe that doesn't apply.

 

Matamoros is an ugly name. "Moor-Killer." I remembered that Spain had a town with just as ugly a name - Matajudios - "Jew-Killer." I'm glad they finally changed the name, after four centuries in 2014. Info here. "Name" section.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrillo_Mota_de_Judíos#:

 

My understanding is that Canada does not make non residents pay tax.

 

Yes - and the Government's decision is final as to who's termed a resident and who's not - and just when that non-resident's former residency expired.

 

Too bad. You could have made Ted Cruz and Justin Bieber pay through the nose!

 

Yeah - and we might have had to take them BACK! Not worth it.

 

You might enjoy this little legal tidbit. Because the way the law is worded, citizens who renounce citizenship lose their firearm rights. Those who reacquire citizenship do not reacquire firearm rights.

https://hodgen.com/why-expatriates-cannot-own-guns/

 

This is a tricky issue. I had to look into when I was immigrating. If you are deemed Canadian (a "deemed resident") for tax purposes you can end up needing to file two tax returns, pay tax twice and then file for a rebate of the tax from the other country.

As an American who is not a deemed resident of Canada, I don't have to file a Canadian tax return since I'm not resident there and have no income there. The opposite is not true. I must file a US tax return every year and list my worldwide income.

 

And that remains true regardless of your tax home, Bermuda to Bengali. That’s the difference.

The Nomad Capitalist blogged years ago about deciding to renounce U.S. citizenship. He doesn't live in the U.S., hasn't for years, and accumulated some other nationalities along the way.

His friends and colleagues who aren't all U.S. citizens, told him he was foolish to relinquish what is so difficult and time consuming to acquire but he felt that the U.S. tax system treated him unfairly.

He went through the whole process including paying a good sized packet to IRS and finally obtained his Certificate of Loss of Nationality.

This young man is smart and hard working but I would never act as he did. There are other ways to manage business and investment income and whatever nationalities he has gained might prove less than stable should things turn nasty.

 

I might consider it IF I had a claim to some Western European nationality or Canada or Australia or New Zealand perhaps. I'm not sure even then though. I could actually claim Israeli nationality if I moved there. That's something I might have done years ago but not now. Nevertheless I would not have given up U.S. citizenship in the process.

 

I entertained retirement in Mexico at one point. I like the country and speak the language well enough to get along. When you take the Mexican naturalization oath you foreswear allegiance to all other nations and turn in your foreign passport. Nice ceremony. I get it. But since my U.S. passport actually belongs to the U.S. government the Mexican government turns it over to Washington who in turn would mail it back to me!

 

You would think that the U.S. would also have some sort of expedited process for regaining nationality once relinquished but as far as I know, we don't.

On the other hand, there aren't very many ways to lose U.S. nationality. It always requires intent and there's a strong presumption that the U.S. national does not intend to relinquish even if he takes an oath to acquire a new nationality.

 

A well-known Turks and Caicos politician and lawyer, Akierra Missick, found she was required to give up her US citizenship by virtue of the new Constitution of Turks and Caicos, written in 2009 - her own Act. Story here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akierra_Missick