I don’t own any land in Calgary, and as such, have no interest in singing its praises.
^Pretty sure your land in ND has appreciated quite nicely already.
North Dakota’s so hot right now.
It’s 160 acres of farmland about 80 miles east of any drilling. I’ve only been there once, my wife was gifted it by her uncle, but it’s currently leased and that’s what we intend to do for the forseeable future. It’s a little mailbox money for the time being, and possibly something of real value down the road.
Apparently Burger King wants to live in Canada too, citing much more favourable taxes.
I really don’t understand why we can’t get the corporate tax rate down to 0%. I mean aside from the public outrage it would cause.
^Because then, I wouldn’t get a W-2. Instead, I’d get a 1099, and I’d deduct my house payment, my car payment, all my groceries, utility bills and vacations. Tax bill would get reduced to zero.
You ask, “But Greenman, that’s illegal! What if you get audited?”
I reply, “If I’m in the 1% that get audited, I’ll worry about it then.”
Just read an article on HuffPo about the BK thing and it indicated that the average effective tax rate for US corporations is below slightly 13%. Of course all the progressive commenters to the article, who now plan to boycott BK, pointed to that and said: “See evil corporations already pay the lowest taxes of anywhere else, so they should stop moving to Canada and killing jobs in the US.” I didn’t see a single comment along the lines of: “Since US companies are already only paying 13%, why not just slash the corporate tax rate to something comparable and eliminate the need for companies to spend millions of dollars on tax avoidance strategies.”
With integration a reduction corporate taxes would mean dividend taxes would need to increase. That said, tax integration is relatively poor in the US anyway (and extremely good in low tax, apparently, Canada). Anyway, its not about tax rates. The US taxes corporates on their global income, Canada taxes corporates on only domestic income. This is actually the important difference. The savings for companies with global operations to leave the US to practical any country would be substantial. Not business friendly.
The US also taxes citizens and permanent residents too (I think) this way. It’s one of my major hesitations of do I or to I not want to get a green card, because then if I want to move abroad, I’d still have to pay US tax or renounce my permanant residency and then go through the whole process if I came back. I think it’s insane. Being a Canadian citizen without any Canadian source income, I don’t have to do anything with Revenue Canada anymore.
^ The IRS is starting to go after US ex pats up here that haven’t reported in decades. Apparently some may owe tens of thousands in penalties. Could get nailed anytime they cross the border. Really silly. Especially since no tax is owed, just the report.
^ This is a big deal considering there are more than 1 million dual citizens in Canada, but are you sure they can be nailed at anytime when crossing the border?
The whole issue is that the IRS has no clue who these people are, that’s the reason they are putting pressure on Canadian banks to give confidential information. I’m guessing they will mail out a warning to said people with a possible fine if they ever find out instead of nailing someone on the spot. I’m not sure how close the IRS and border control work together, unless it’s a notorious tax evader.
I’m sure my American bias comes through, but I’ve traveled/lived extensively across the world and based on my criteria it would be:
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Seoul
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San Diego
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Bangkok
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New York
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San Francisco/Montreal
Are you kidding me? If they don’t file their tax returns they deserve to get nailed. I had to do that many times as an expat and it was a pain in the ass, but it’s the law and there should be repercussions for those who break it. Why don’t you just move to Somalia or something if you don’t want statutes to actually be enforced?
^ The US is the only country in the entire world that makes expats file returns. Its a dumb law. So instead of having these people come back and spend thousands in tourist dollars, the US forces them into exhile for an admistrative issue. Real bright. I wonder how many billion the IRS spends administering all the zero returns and chasing people down for $0 owing. That’s a question Americans should be asking. Some Canadian born, American dual citizens (American parents) are getting nailed with penalties and such and they’ve never really even been to the US other than as a tourist. Silly.
^^^ FT - My understanding is they’ve be forced to pay the penalties in question prior to entry at the border (if caught). I’m not sure this is true though after digging around. My source was a concerned US expat CPA, so I’ll check in with him to see what he was talking about.
^ Let me know what you find out. I know a few in that situation and they’re not sure what to do at this point. Report after a decade or play the ignorant card. They wouldnt have owed anything if they did report.