So You're Considering Moving to Canada, Eh?...By Hartley Henderson

[StarnetGypsy]

LOL Ron!!

Actually, did try a new tactic last time and took my pooch w/me. So long as the person in the booth aint a Paki or some other nationality that looks upon dogs as a food source, then they like to talk about their dog an whisked me thru

What blew me away is that one time I was actually in a sportscoat, clean shaven, newer Honda Prelude, and the person who had me pull over to be investigated looked more like a terrorist than I did, or ever could. I wouldn't have minded too much except I served in a war to defend, and some dink from a muslim country questions my honor or considers me a threat?

[The Actuary]

Canada is a great country.
The US is a great country.

Hartley is an uniformed moron, usual half truths outright falsehoods and blatant idiocy.

the amount of American citizens applying for jobs in other countries is at the highest level ever

-surely due to the recently passed gaming act, nothing to do with american interests abroad being at record heights.

This isn't surprising considering American online gamblers have essentially been ostracized by their government and been made to feel like common criminals. While Europe has embraced online gambling, the United States has declared it illegal and is making every attempt to combat the activity by its citizens.

Who knows? I bet all day long all the time online on the races and it is considered 100% legal-one would think every attempt would include at the very least constricting domestic supply-instead it is a 15billion dollar a year industry and growing.

Europe hasn't embraced it, the exact opposite-certain countries are exhibiting extreme protectionism which will ultimately be the downfall of the euro.


Why read further?

[Domer]

Average price of a home in Toronto is $306k US?

Damn.

Where's a good area for a house/condo in Toronto?

[Hartley]

the amount of American citizens applying for jobs in other countries is at the highest level ever

-surely due to the recently passed gaming act, nothing to do with american interests abroad being at record heights.

Where did I say it had to do strictly with the gambling act? Most of this movement was long before October. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with American Interests overseas but the article talked specifically about American inquiries to Canada and Britain. What possible interests does the U.S. have in those countries other than the fact that Americans are sick of the government?

Domer, any area close to downtown in a decent area you're looking at about a million for a house. Many of the suburbs for about a 2000 sq ft house you're looking around the CDN$360k mark. The northern part of the GTA (Thornhill, Richmond Hill) is more expensive.

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by j

Also, if you do give up US citizenship, you are still liable for U.S. taxes for the next seven years.

Are you serious? That's 21st century slavery if you ask me...

[Hartley]

Yeah Conrad I just noticed that quote myself. I never read anything about that when I did my research on immigrating to Canada from the U.S.

I'm no tax lawyer but I did find this though:

Canadian Residency

As a resident of Canada, you are subject to Canadian tax on your worldwide income. As a US citizen or resident, you are also subject to US tax on your worldwide income. In most cases, the domestic law of each country, and the treaty will work together to ensure that you aren’t double-taxed. But you will usually pay the higher of the two countries’ taxes. Canadian income tax is generally much higher than US tax, so it can come as a rude shock if you’re not anticipating it.

What follows is a practical, not technical, discussion of Canadian residency for US citizens and residents.

Canadian domestic law

Unlike US residency, Canadian residency is based on an individual’s “facts and circumstances”. In most cases, there is no “bright-line” test, like the number of days you're physically in the country. Instead, each case is examined with a view to determining how close the connections are to each country. The big question is “do you seem like a resident?”. Without putting too fine a point on it, if you look like a resident and you quack like a resident, you’re probably a resident.

It is important to note that under Canadian domestic law, it is possible to be a resident of more than one country at a time. Just because you’re a US resident doesn’t mean you can’t be a Canadian resident, too. In general, if you:

Live in Canada most of the time
Have a home available to you in Canada, and you use it for more than 6 months or so, you will be considered a resident.
Have a regular job in Canada (whether as an employee or self-employed contractor), and you have a regular place to stay in Canada, you’re probably a resident, or
Stay in Canada over 3 months per year, several years in a row,
then you’ll be considered a factual resident under Canada’s domestic law.

You can also be a deemed resident if you “sojourn” for more than 183 days in Canada. Sojourning is generally defined as visiting, without having a defined purpose. If you come to Canada to work, then you will generally not be sojourning. There are other rules by which you can be deemed to be a resident, but they have very narrow application.

Avoiding residency using the treaty

As you can see, it’s pretty easy to be considered a resident under Canada’s domestic law. If you’re a US citizen or “green-card” holder (or a resident under the substantial presence test), you’re subject to US tax on your worldwide income as well.

This is one of the main reasons Canada and the United States have a treaty. To minimize the situations where you are a resident of both countries, the treaty contains “tie-breaker” rules. These rules only apply where you are a resident of each country under its domestic law. For US residency, this means that you are a citizen, or a green-card holder with any minimal ties, or that you meet the substantial presence test.

If you are considered a resident of a country other than Canada under a Canadian treaty, then you are considered a non-resident of Canada for all purposes.

The tie-breaker rules

These rules are applied in order. In other words, if the first rule yields a result of one country and only one country, the rules below are ignored. If it yields a tie, then you try the next rule, and so on.

Permanent Home
If you have a permanent home available to you in one country, and not in the other, then you are a resident of that country. A permanent home must be one that is capable of year-round occupancy (for instance, not an unwinterized cottage).

If the home is rented to a third party, then the terms of the lease are important. If you can re-occupy within 30 or 60 days, then it is probably available to you. If you have a lease of 6 months or more, it is probably not available.

You need not own the home. It can be rented, shared, or provided by an employer, or provided by friend.

Usually, a parent’s home is available to a minor child, or an adult child still in school. It is not usually considered available to an adult, non-dependent child.

Closer connection
If you have closer personal and economic connections to one country than another, then you are a resident of that first country. This rule is fairly nebulous, though.

The main connections are your immediate family (the ones you live with), your main work, your home, and the time you spend at one place. If these all point in the same direction, then you will likely be a resident of that country. Secondary connections are things such as financial accounts, professional, political and social memberships, and the like. If the main connections are ambiguous, these ones probably won’t be indicative either.

Habitual abode
In order to have an habitual abode, you must spend a considerable amount of time, regularly sleeping in one location. You don’t need to sleep there a majority of the time, just a lot. Over the course of a year, you probably need to spend 30 nights in one place at a minimum, spread out over the year, to call it an habitual abode.

Citizenship
Citizenship is a clear test. There is no uncertainty with this one. If you are a citizen of only one country, you are a resident of that country. If you are a citizen of both or neither, then this test is unhelpful.

Competent authority
Each country has an individual who is designated as the “competent authority” to deal with treaties. In Canada this is the Director General of the International Tax Directorate. In the United States it is the Assistant Commissioner (International) of the IRS. They ordinarily delegate their authority to make these decisions to their staff members.

If none of the above tests is conclusive, then you may make an application to both of these individuals. They will jointly determine your country of residency.

[Mjulian]

That's funny. What more effective test to determine if you've a gambling problem than if you'd be willing to move to Canada so you can get down.

[Hartley]

Hey don't shoot the messenger

I received 6 emails asking if I could put up something about moving to Canada and/or Britain so I'm doing so. If you recall when I took the job my first post was to say that if there are any topics of interest please email me and if there is enough requests I'll write a story on it.

[StarnetGypsy]

hey Hartley ..

Have you heard about this political action to unify Canada, Mexico, and the US into one country, sorta like the EU?

If these guys have their way, it wont matter where the hell we're living in North America, and .. you Canucks wont be allowed to use NT either eh?

Full article - Creating the North American Union

Creating the North American Union
by Dennis Behreandt
October 2, 2006
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The plans for a North American Security and Prosperity Partnership are steps on the way to a North American Union. (Tell your representative and senators "NO North American Union!" Also, click here to send a message to your representative and senators in support of H. Con. Res. 487 to stop the NAU.)

On June 21, viewers of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight heard the alarming introduction to a segment of the program devoted to the future of the United States of America. "The Bush administration's open-borders policy and its decision to ignore the enforcement of this country's immigration laws is part of a broader agenda," Dobbs intoned. "President Bush signed a formal agreement that will end the United States as we know it, and he took the step without approval from either the U.S. Congress or the people of the United States."

The agreement Dobbs was talking about was crafted a year earlier. On March 23, 2005, then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and Mexican President Vicente Fox met with President Bush in Waco, Texas, to discuss plans for integrating Canada, the United States, and Mexico. During that meeting, the three heads of state argued that the three nations are "mutually dependent and complementary" and need to work together more closely on a range of issues. "In a rapidly changing world, we must develop new avenues of cooperation that will make our open societies safer and more secure, our businesses more competitive, and our economies more resilient," the three leaders said in a joint statement.

The standard diplomatic language was a prelude to a radical proposal calling for the merger of the three nations in several important ways. Under a so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), the nations will no longer have separate borders, but will "implement common border-security." The three nations will no longer respond on the national level to emergencies but will have a "common approach to emergency response." And, in a move that has tremendous implications for the growing immigration crisis, the three leaders agreed that the United States' north and south borders would be eliminated. Under the SPP plan, the three nations will "implement a border-facilitation strategy to build capacity and improve the legitimate flow of people and cargo at our shared borders."
This plan is nothing short of revolutionary. As Dobbs put it on his CNN program, it is "an absolute contravention of our law, of our Constitution, every national value." Though the plan sounds like a new innovation, it is not new. It is the next step in a progression of steps that, in a manner very similar to the process used in Europe to supplant individual nations with the European Union, will ultimately lead to the formation of a new government for the United States, the North American Union. If not stopped, the plan for a North American Union will supplant the former independent states of Canada, Mexico, and the United States. And this is not conjecture. The North American Union is official U.S. policy.

[Conrad]

Originally Posted by Mjulian

That's funny. What more effective test to determine if you've a gambling problem than if you'd be willing to move to Canada so you can get down.

There could be other reasons, like moving to a country with a higher standard of living. Canada fits the bill perfectly...

[count zero]

See, what's wrong with the old nationalism-based model is that whenever a country starts doing well, all the poor people in that country expect their standard of living to go up along with everyone else's, and they stop being willing to lick the toilet for 5c an hour. Fucking lazy shitbags.

But with the new global model, those people can be kicked to the curb and replaced by motivated toilet-lickers from third-world countries that have no other hope of economic improvement after having sold their elected representatives, their natural resources and their dignity to the USA and other successful countries. Meanwhile, the dispossessed poor from the successful country, most of them rabid, albeit dimwitted, supporters of the very people who are betraying them for money, get welfare if they're lucky (paid for by me, among others), while the big boys spend their enhanced profits buying politicians to insure they can go on poisoning the world with Mickey-and-Donald shit for money they can never possibly spend.

But don't get me wrong, I love America.

[The Actuary]

What possible interests does the U.S. have in those countries other than the fact that Americans are sick of the government?


Hartley, large multinational US companies have large interests in both Canada and the UK.



See what is wrong with this country? The perpetual need to eliminate the toilet licker at the expense of the guy with ambition.
If there is no failure who give's a shit abt wanting to succeed?-here let me help absolutely fukkin no one and hence the total and complete failure of communism and socialism

What kind of doctors do you expect to have when the gov't is dictating their wages?

What kind of country do you expect when competition is replaced by socialist beaurocracy? Here let me help, a world, completely devoid of anything in the way of innovation and wholly dependent on the US for everything.

Or maybe that is not the case and all the advancement in medicine and technology aka all the advancement of mankind the last 20yrs took place somewhere other than in the grand ole USA.

[SlipperyPete]

Originally Posted by Mjulian

That's funny. What more effective test to determine if you've a gambling problem than if you'd be willing to move to Canada so you can get down.

Some of us make decent money at this

[Conrad]

Hartley, with regards to taxes I believe that US citizens, no matter how long it's been since they've stopped being US residents, still have to pay the US racket "protection money" if they earn more than a certain amount each year.