Many Canadians come back to Canada after a prolonged stay in the US for their own reasons but when they do, many simply let their Green Cards expire if they have one thinking that their American tax obligations will just expire along with the card. This, in itself is not true. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The process to surrender your green card, also known as Lawful Permanent Resident (LPR status) is actually straight forward. A LPR must contact a local U.S. embassy or consulate and make an appointment. The embassy or consular official will provide USCIS Form I-407, Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Resident Status. Upon receiving the form, it must be filled out and submitted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An I-407 form allows a legal permanent resident to officially abandon their status. You would need to submit it to a U.S. embassy or consulate in your area, as well as your actual green card, there is no fee for this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A consular officer will conduct an interview to make sure that you fully understand the consequences of giving up U.S. residency, and that you are doing so voluntarily. You will get a copy of your form I-407, this will help you in the future if you\u2019re applying for a U.S. visa or entry, to avoid confusion about your earlier status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is actually another way that one is able to relinquish his or her green card. A person can actually file Form 8833 \u201cTreaty claim of residency in another country\u201d \u2013 Under the Canada-U.S. Tax Treaty, one can take a treaty \u2013 based position that they are a nonresident of the U.S. for tax purposes. In order to dispose of the green card in this manner, the tax payer must file Form 1040NR with the Form 8833 attached to inform the IRS that he or she is making a treaty election to be taxed as a nonresident alien as a result of becoming a resident in the named treaty country. A side note: Technically Form 8833 is not required if payment or income items on the tax return are $100,000 or less, but in order to eliminate questions or concerns during a review, the Form 8833 should be filed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although it sounds simple to relinquish your green card \u2013 it might have some other undesirable consequences, so it is probably a good idea to seek out competent legal and tax advice before making the decision.<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many Canadians come back to Canada after a prolonged stay in the US for their own reasons but when they do, many simply let their Green Cards expire if they have one thinking that their American tax obligations will just expire along with the card. This, in itself is not true. The process to surrender … Continue reading “Go Away Green Card – Don’t Bother Me”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tax-and-financial"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":327,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions\/327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taxpaws.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}