Any snowbirds here? Heard that the U.S. is considering extending the current 6 month tax-free period for Canadian snowbirds to 8 months to help boost the U.S. economy. Plus, it might also be attractive for Canadians in light of the CAD trading at a premium to the USD.
Snowbirds
- Thread starter Rockslinger
- Start date
Regardless of what the tax-free period might be, you would no longer qualify for health insurance after being out of the country for more than 183 of the past 365 days (half a year). And if you're a landed immigrant, you will lose your status as well.
I believe in Ontario it's 153 days to lose your health coverage
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ohip/
http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/public/programs/ohip/
We just went through that, we were informed that the rule was you had to BE in Ontario for 153 days for any 12 months. No duration of each trip as long as the total was under 212 days per year.
I am not certain about this since it did not matter to us, but I think it is true.
CA
Oh we had to look into that as well. They can require you to prove it, at least they can for tax purposes. We are only allowed to be in Canada for a certain numbers of days a year or we loose our non-resident tax exemption. We were told to not cheat because it can be extracted from the scan data when they put you passport into the machine.
If you have dual citizenship every entry into Canada is recorded for both passports. We were told the US will supply their information if asked by Canada.
I have no idea if this is true, but I know every night we record where we are sleeping to be safe and our legal beagle told us to do it.
Well then you would have return dates on your passports but no exit dates. I imagine then it would be a case of "you're now cut off until you supply us with acceptable proof of how long you were out of the country".
Fair enough. But I'm not sure they stamp passports as a practice unless they have a reason to.
I know they swipe the passport when entering either US or Canada. .Maybe that's the "logging" part? But even then, logging is done on the entry part of the trip, not the exit.
I know they swipe the passport when entering either US or Canada. .Maybe that's the "logging" part? But even then, logging is done on the entry part of the trip, not the exit.
This is all guess work on my part, but they stick the passport into a machine that reads it and compares it against some data base. I was told "oh this is your 5 th trip to Canada in 5 months, what is the attraction here?" SO I am guessing they have a history.
Also US entry and Canada entry share information
With the CAD at a premium to the USD and real estate prices still low, anybody thinking about retiring to the U.S.? My stockbroker has already bought a house in Scottsdale Arizona and plans to pass his "book" to his son and retire there in a few years.
My understanding is that it depends on the coverage.
Ohip you need to be in Ontario for 154 days a year
Private plans and company plans often have a 180 days away clause, some are per trip, some are total.
In our case we have SOS as our primary care plan now.
Good point but I think all the TERBies (except me) on this Board are rich enough to pay their own medical expenses. Didn't one TERBie say that he always go to the Mayo Centre in the U.S. for his medical care?
I know a couple of distant friends who retired to Central America because the CAD goes really far and there are more women than they can handle and the weather is always warm.
In theory if you make enough money from non Canadian sources it is cheaper to go non resident and pay for medical coverage than to keep paying taxes. This does not apply to people living in US. Nor does it apply to people receiving a pension from Canadian sources as their main income.
