Tax Day Canadian Style

 We finished our tax returns a few weeks ago. Actually I should say Toni’s cousin Steve finished them for us. By another strange coincidence he is a Kansas City native who married a Toronto woman a few years ago, and he happens to not only be an accountant but he specializes in cross border accounting. Having him on board gave us complete confidence that everything was done right on the first go round and he saved us a couple of thousand dollars. On top of that his office is only a couple of blocks away from our apartment.

As you can see from the photos things were a little more involved this year. As long as you are a US citizen you are required to file regardless of where you live or work. We still have a good part of our income from US sources so returns were required for two states, one province, and two countries, and we had to pay in two currencies. That took most of a ream of paper.

There are a few differences from US filing here. There is no joint filing option. Husband and wife file separately but you can shift your incomes from one to the other for the best outcome. The filing date is slightly later, April 30th.

One thing that is unchanged is that it is still a little painful. Well, not really. The truth is that I am quite happy to pay taxes to both countries. I know there is waste but I feel confident that most of it is well spent.