Hey folks, a question on taxes – if you have no permanent home base and are traveling between US and Canada, but not necessarily spending 6 months or longer anywhere in particular, what ends up being your residency for tax purposes?

Example – say in a given year you spend 4 months in BC, 2 in AB, 1 in AK, and 5 split between WA, OR, and CA. And you are a US citizen / have no permanent status in Canada, working remotely for a US company.

Am I correct in understanding that you’re treated as a resident in Canada for tax purposes if this ends up being 6 months + 1 week? If so, would you pay taxes to a specific province?
If you spend under 6 months in Canada on the other hand, I assume you’re only paying US tax. But then, which state?

  • jamar030303@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Not a tax preparer, this is not formal tax advice, yada yada yada.

    Am I correct in understanding that you’re treated as a resident in Canada for tax purposes if this ends up being 6 months + 1 week?

    There’s a Canada-US tax treaty that makes it a bit more complicated than that. The “residency” section of the treaty says:

    He shall be deemed to be a resident of the Contracting State in which he has a permanent home available to him; if he has a permanent home available to him in both States or in neither State, he shall be deemed to be a resident of the Contracting State with which his personal and economic relations are closer (centre of vital interests);

    So if you don’t have a “permanent home” in either the US or Canada, then you’d be a citizen of wherever your social (presumably friends, family, and/or other people you’re obliged to help out day to day) and economic (employer, banking) connections are closer. By this test alone, you should be a US citizen, in which case the next step is to determine which states would tax you.