Moving overseas

My_question_is: Applicable to Another Jurisdiction or Multi-jurisdictions
Subject: Moving overseas
Expert: [email protected]
Date: Tuesday February 20, 2007
Time: 01:27 PM -0500

QUESTION:

Hello,

We currently have our primary residence in Ontario, have a rental property
in California and likely to move to Australia within 6 months. We moved back
to Canada not too long ago after many years away.

What would you advice we do to minimise taxes all round ? E.g. (1) Would it
be a good idea to rent our house in Canada instead of selling it ? We have
not decided where or when we'll be retiring.(2) Keep or sell the rental
property in California ?

Would appreciate any advice you may have for us. Thanks in anticipation.

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david ingram replies:

I just hung up from talking to a lady client who had moved back into their
Vancouver Condo after stints in two other cities. When she left she really
wanted to sell the condo and I talked her out of it.

She was quite happy to move back in with its value doubled. If she had sold
Vancouver and bought in the other places, she could not have afforded the
buy back in Vancouver.

Tax should be the least of your worries. You should be keeping both of your
houses unless you absolutely need the money for your Australian venture. If
the intent is to stay in Australia, then you should be buying there sooner
rather than later.

I would suggest that over time, the Ontario property will not do as well as
the California property but it really depends upon "where" in Ontario and
"where" in California.

As an example A Harbour Castle Condo On the water at the foot of Yonge
Street) in Toronto will almost certainly do better than a Riverside condo in
California.

If you can keep them both, keep them both. In the long run they will
appreciate and if you do decide to return to either place, there is a home
waiting for you at today's cost.

You will keep on filing 1040NR and 540NR returns for California and a
Section 216(4) rental return for Canada.

Minimizing taxes is not the aim - preservation of capital and future worth
is / should be the goal.

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