Cross Border Tax Consultants

The cryptocurrency has become a mainstream investment activity for many in recent years. Many people who held the bitcoins long ago have drastic gains when they disposed off the bitcoins at the peak in 2020. Canada Revenue Agency require all the taxpayers to report gains or losses from transactions in cryptocurrencies. During pandemic, many young investors have used their savings or benefits to buy cryptocurrencies. At end of the year, they are struggling to file taxes. Recently Canada Revenue Agency in Canada and the Internal revenue Service in the United States have joined their forces to detect the taxpayers who are hiding their income from dealings in cryptocurrencies. Taxpayers are misguided that they can hide their income from taxman if they deal in cryptos because there is no public record. That’s not true anymore. The public ledger and other sources can help taxman figure out your non compliance. Due to the cross border information exchange and tax intelligence, more and mo...

Canada taxes cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin as a commodity. Depending on our circumstances, the resulting income is taxed as a business income or capital gain on your personal income tax return. If you hold bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies as a Capital asset, the result is going to be a Capital gain or loss. Such a gain or loss is included only half in your income. If you are running a crypto business such as trading as a day trader and have huge volumes of transactions, CRA will say it’s a business income. Soits important to consult some tax professional to determine if you are running a business or holding capital assets. If you are a cryptocurrency miner you are definitely running a business and you can treat income as a business income. Business income can be offset against other business losses as well, even your employment income. When you are running a business, you are entitled to all the deductions a business will be ordinarily allowed. Some of these transactions can ...

If you are a U.S. person and shareholder of a Canadian corporation, especially Canadian controlled private corporation (CCPC) or professional corporation, you might be struggling around GILTI. What is GILTI? How is GILTI calculated? How to avoid GILTI? If you are having all these questions, you are not alone! Let’s simplify the GILTI for you. If you need a more detailed but simplified understanding of GILTI and how it affects the U.S. shareholders of Canadian corporations, read here . GILTI is a complex tax topic and ideally should be dealt by a cross border tax accountant in Toronto. However, you can avoid the GILTI altogether by one simple decision – Pay yourself Salary from your Canadian corporation! Yes, by paying yourself salary you can remove the earnings from the corporation. The income is reported as an employment income on your Canadian income tax return. Foreign tax credit against the income tax credits paid in Canada are available to apply against US income tax liabi...

  An LLC (limited liability company) is created under the state laws in the United States. Limited liability companies (LLC) offer its members liability protection while offering the benefits of being fiscally transparent. Fiscally transparent entity means that income is not taxes at LLC level, but it flows to its members and taxed at the personal level. The LLCs are America’s favorite business structure, so much so that, local accountants in the US tend to recommend to everyone. Sometimes, they recommend it to residents of other countries without knowing the income tax consequences on those taxpayers in their countries. Many Canadian taxpayers often go ahead an set up an LLC in the U.S. without knowing the serious income tax issues. An LLC is treated as a corporation in Canada whereas a flow through entity in the U.S. Since Canada does not see an LLC as a fiscally transparent entity and consider it a corporation, the income of LLC is not included in the personal income of its...

In Canada, every year many taxpayers go to file their individual income tax returns and are shocked to find that a tax return has already been filed for them! Some innocent Canadians, additionally, get fake calls from cybercriminals who impersonate as tax officials. Sadly, Tax frauds are increasing in number everyday. According to the Canadian Anti-fraud Centre, about 45,000 people became victims of cybercrimes and lost around $96 million in 2019. Even then, a big number of Canadians still take this easy and ignore certain facts about e-filing tax returns. CRA has deactivated 800,000 accounts in order to protect the information of the taxpayers whose credentials are for sale on the dark web. The cybercriminals make all these efforts for taking benefits’ payments and refunds of targeted taxpayers. They are making impersonation scams, malware, and phishing schemes. They are striving to steal the confidential information of many Canadians and Residents. If you don’t want to suffer whil...

  Americans have been moving to Canada like never before, especially in 2020. This is really important that as a U.S. Citizen you familiarize yourself with tax obligations. The U.S. taxes its citizens and permanent residents on world-wide income no matter wherever they reside. Canada taxes its residents (not citizens) on their worldwide income. Therefore, Americans in Canada must file both U.S. and Canadian income tax returns. Filing income tax returns in both countries result in some double taxation issues. Fortunately, the U.S. Canada tax treaty provides relief from the double taxation. As the tax rates are higher in Canada it results in the lower to no taxes owing in the U.S. This is important to know that U.S. citizens are subject to two important foreign assets reporting regime: FATCA and FBAR. If you meet certain thresholds you must file FINCEN 114 and 8938 to ensure compliance. If you fail, penalties are outrageously steep. TFSAs and RESPs are not taxable in Canada however...

  This is very common for the employers to avoid expenses by asking their employees to sign contracts as corporations in Canada. If you are an IT professional in Canada and your employer has asked you to incorporate a business and sign the contract, you must know the tax implications of these decisions. When a corporation has an incorporated-employee who performs services on its behalf, it is called Personal Services Business (PSB) as per Income Tax Act in Canada. First, see if your relationship is of employee or independent contactor with the business for whom you are providing these services. IF the relationship is of employment nature, your corporation will be a PSB. If the relationship is of independent contractor, you have an active business income. Now, determining whether the relationship is employee or contractor, is a fact based exercise. Simply signing a contract and saying it is a contractor is not enough. A brilliant article written by Maroof H. Sabri provides a basic...