Accountants for Canadian investing in US

[Zeshan Choudhry]

Hi Everyone, I am looking for accountants, lawyers and tax specialist to assist with cross border investing. I am a Canadian citizen and I have purchased properties in the US through a LLC. I wanted to know if anyone would have recommendations for accountants they have used that can assist with entity structure and tax considerations.

I have been told that I may need to have a Canadian corporation own the LLC in order to avoid double taxation.

Any advice/referrals would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[Roy N.]

@Zeshan Choudhry

[I'm not an accountant, but I have had this dance]

The CRA does not recognize LLCs as flow-through entities, but as bodies corporate. If you have elected for your LLC to be taxed as a discardable / flow-through entity in the U.S.A., you will not be able to claim a credit for the U.S.A. taxes paid when you file your Canadian taxes.

If you have a corporate entity in the U.S.A. - a C-corp or an LLC that elects to be taxed as a corporation - and that corporation is a 100% owned child subsidiary of a Canadian corporation, then when you elect to repatriate retained earnings from the U.S.A. child to the Canadian parent (a dividend), the parent company should pay no additional tax on the repatriated capital.

You should have little difficulty finding an accountant or lawyer with cross-boarder experience in the Big Smoke.   You could reach out to George Dube at BDO.