US/Canada Tax Preparation

Hello there,

I am a US citizen residing in the US with rental properties in Vancouver,
BC. I normally prepare my US taxes early in the year around February. Will
I have the paperwork from Canadian banks for interest income, mortgage
interest paid, statements of rents from management companies, etc, in time
to include with the US return or do I need to file an extension while I
wait?

How much would your office charge to do returns for both US and Canada?

Thanks,




david ingram replies:

Canadian financial institutions are not required to send out the information
you are asking for until February 28. The rental management companies are
not required to send the information until March 31st.

The Canadian government does not require your Canadian rental returns to be
filed until June 30th.

If you had one property, you might be able to prevail and get the paperwork
before April 15th, but my advice (With the number you seem to be involved
with) is to save yourself a high level of stress and file your automatic
4868 extension which gives you until August 31st to file the US return.
Make sure that you conform to your individual state rules for extensions as
well.

You ask about price - In general we charge between $800 and $2,000 for US /
Canadian Income tax returns. In the first year of a rental we charge an
additional $200 - $300 extra per rental because there are two different
types of depreciation (3 if you live in California) and values to be
determined between land and buildings and chattels

In short, If you have 4 or 5 rentals, you would likely be in the $2,000 to
$3,000 range for this first year.

Hope this helps.