Tax Guide
-
Tax Guide
WARNING: This information should be used at your own risk as it has not necessarily been written by a tax specialist and does not apply to all situations.
Contents
[1Overview
http://www.intltaxlaw.com/treaties/canada/treaty.htmand compare articles XX and XV. I'm pretty sure XV is the right one (which was backed up by my article I posted to the VLB). I think article XX only applies to money received outside of the states.
Here's what article XV says according to my source:
2. ...renumeration derived by a [Canadian resident] in respect of employment exercised in a calendar year in [the United States] shall be taxable only in [Canada] if: (a) Such renumeration does not exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000) in the currency of [the United States]... Thus if you had less than $10,000 in earned income from U.S. sources in a calendar year, you may exclude this income from federal income tax in the U.S. by claiming Article XV of the U.S.-Canada tax treaty
Here's how I translated article XX (which may be wrong):
Payments which a student, apprentice or business trainee, who is or was immediately before visiting [the United States] a resident of [Canada], and who is present in [the United States] for the purpose of his full-time education or training, receives for the purpose of his maintenance, education or training shall not be taxed in [the United States] provided that such payments are made to him from *outside* [the United States].
(this basically says, I think, if you're a student (which I guess we are) and receive scholarship money and/or money from parents to support yourself or pay for school you don't have to pay tax on it *if it came from Canada*).
My source backs this up as well when it says: "The U.S.-Canada tax treaty contains no *specific benefits* for either students or visiting scholars who are residents of Canada.
As well, what you have written for item J is not entirely correct (but I don't think it's really incorrect either).
"J. Enter the $amount followed by "US/Canada Income Tax Treaty, publication 597, Article XX - students"
The US - Canada Income Tax Treaty is not really Publication 597. Publication 597 is really only an overview/synopsis of what the US-Canada Income Tax Treaty provides. It does not contain the individual articles. The IRS doesn't publish the treaty because it's a common document shared between the United States and Canada. My source suggests that you should specifically claim that you made less than $10,000 by writing "earned income less than $10,000, Article XV" for the second part of item J.
http://www.wooster.edu/oisa/1040NR-EZ.html- Trent S.
As for those of us who were not servers and made more "official" money on our W-4's from what I could find I think that if we made over $10,000 we're screwed. From the IRS site it says you are only exempt from taxes if you made less than $10,000 or if you were in the US for less than 183 days in the year AND the money doesn't come from a US employer. Neither of these last 2 conditions are true for us. If this is right and I am not exempt from paying tax I am in trouble because my rough calculations show I will owe another $300 US on top of what Disney deducted! I hope I made a mistake or that I am wrong about something.
- Darren B.
First of all, there is most definitely a Canada-U.S. tax treaty. Second of all, how would this guy have any idea about how the Canadian pavilion has been filing taxes for the last five years??? He's correct in saying that you don't have to pay taxes twice--you pay them all in Canada. Now I am most definitely not an expert in this area but I can't see how everyone could have gotten their money back last year, and now this year everyone has to pay?! Nothing has changed with tax laws. I did some investigation on the 'net and think I found a pretty relevant link. I reproduced the information below. But if you want to check the original page, here's the URL:http://www.upenn.edu/oip/fsa/tax/canatre.htmlThis is from the University of Pennsylvania, Tax Information for International Students page.
Hey there guys I hate to break it to you, but the good old Canadian government somehow found out that I declared my taxes in the US, and I got a nice little note saying that I had already been issued my foreign tax credit on my Canadian cheque, therefor I now owed the Canadian government the money I got in the states back to them!!!! It could be different because I am an American citizen, but I never told them, so somehow they found out.
I believe yes you are supposed to claim your taxes here as that is why we get our taxes back in the states--b/c os some treaty...however no the likelihood of them ever finding out that you worked there is very doubtful ( this is what I have been told) For years now no Canadian has filed and they haven't gotten in and trouble. But a few have claimed. If I would have claimed last year I would have had to pay the cdn government over 2,000 dollars..more than the money I got back from Disney. I landed up not filing last year and I was refunded about 300. Its up to you.
Thanks to everyone else who has been contributing to the tax thread on the VLB!
ETS TAXrefund Get your TAX BACK
