Hi David
I received your contact details from Glen Kelleway. I thought you might be able to help me with a capital gains tax question.
Here's the overview:
- I am from the UK originally and own two houses there
- I have been living in Canada for approx 22 months.
- I am married to a Canadian
- We own a house together in BC (both on the title)
- I am fully employed in Canada and pay tax here. I haven't yet filed my tax return this year in Canada.
- I earn $42k gross per annum plus commission on real estate sales. We haven't had any sales so I haven't had any commission payments so I'm not sure how my tax bracket in Canada will be affected when I do (expecting to soon)
I am going to sell one of my UK houses soon. I expect the "gain" to be the difference in the price I paid less the price I get for it. The price I paid on paper was 249,995 GPB. I could sell for around 290 - 295GBP. I would have realtor fees of about 4.5k GBP to pay as well as legal fees of approx 1k GBP. I have paid an initial mortgage arrangement fee of 3187 GBP and a subsequent fee of 2157 GBP (I have this in writing). I have had other annual expenses of maintenance fees for the property (like strata fees almost). I would have to pay 2% of the amt borrowed as an early repayment fee i.e. about 4k GBP. So if those all qualify as expenses, my expenses are roughly 15k but that doesn't include interest on the mortgage - it was an interest only mortgage.
I don't think I should be paying UK capital gains on the gains as I haven't lived there since Nov 07.
I'm expecting I'll have to pay capital gains in Canada. Do you think this is the case. Will it be worked out as a tax rate on 50% of the gain i.e. the profit from the sale less my expenses i.e. applicable tax rate on 50%(40k profit - 15k expense) = tax on 12.5k?
I'm not sure what the best option is e.g. I can leave some of the money in the UK and then send most of it to Canada at some stage. This can be done in one amount or in separate amounts. I'm assuming if I leave all the gains money in a UK a/c that Canada will "find out about" my gains and I would still have to pay tax on the gain here.
Having worked with a great tax accountant previously in the UK I am looking for a possible alternative that might save me paying the tax. How do you work on these types of matters?
Thanks.