Residency As An Investment Asset: Why Paying To Sever Tax Residency Can Be An Investment - Canada Edition

March 10, 2021 - Participants Include:

Wayne Bewick - Partner at Trowbridge International Tax

John Richardson - Tax Residency Solutions

In the 21st Century your most important asset may be your tax residency!

Volatile times mean instability. Instability  causes individuals and families to reconsider their life circumstances. Covid-19 has caused many people to reconsider those circumstances. The threat of Wealth taxes in the United States (including California and New York) is making people nervous. The US extraterritorial tax regime is wreaking havoc in the lives of American citizens living in Canada and other countries outside the United States.

Life comes with responsibilities. Those responsibilities include the necessity of seeking opportunities for security and growth. Often the search for opportunities and growth results in a decision to sever tax residency with one country and to acquire tax residency in another. 

 But, severing tax residency comes at a cost. More and more countries are requiring individuals severing tax residency to pay a "departure tax". Canada has a departure tax. The United States has it's 877A Expatriation tax. Australia has a departure tax.

Although Canada's Departure Tax applies to a wider range of people than the US 877A exit tax, Canada's  tax is payable on fewer things. Departure taxes are the cost of severing tax residency. As such they should be viewed as in investment. More and more people view the payment of Departure taxes as a sound investment (possibly prepaying taxes at lower rates) in their financial futures.

In this episode John Richardson and Wayne Bewick discuss the reasons for severing tax residency, the price of severing tax residency and why departure/exit taxes should be viewed as the price of investing in a different future.

Canada continues to be a very attractive country for immigration.

But, there is a growing group of people who see severing Canadian tax residency and paying the departure tax as an investment in their futures.