Americans moving to canada

[santosg]

If a u.s. citizen who spent like a year abroad and then returned home to the u.s. and declared like 1.4 billion usd and paid taxes on it to the irs assuming such amount could be justified but one day decided to marry a canadian who lives in canada, i.e. toronto, vancouver, maybe montreal, ect... if they were given permanent residence in canada, would they have to pay even more taxes than what they already have paid in the u.s.? They already paid like 560 million usd in taxes of the 1.4 billion usd, but would the canada revenue agency come over and tax them even further? If their net worth is 840 million usd in the u.s. of the original 1.4 billion usd for which 560 million usd were already paid in taxes to the internal revenue service, would more taxes have to be paid to the canadian government and assuming this was the case like how much? Lets assume once they arrived in canada and they decided to renounce u.s. citizenship, would this change anything?

 

[Juleski70]

The day you become a tax resident of Canada, that is day zero. You don't owe them any tax for $ you acquired before this day.

You do need to have an accurate tally of your wealth on day zero: your investment portfolio, value of properties or companies owned (around the world). If you sell a property two years later, Canada will want some capital gains tax based on the amount the property has appreciated since day zero. If you earn dividends or get a job, they will tax your income since day zero.

When you immigrate, Canada is pretty generous about letting you bring your personal belongings without charging you import duties (there are a few exceptions and a bunch of rules mostly designed to distinguish between personal goods vs financial assets or commercial inventory).

Your real problem is that (a) unless you renounce your US citizenship, you'll have to keep filing taxes in the US as well - there is a tax treaty so theoretically you won't get double taxed but if you're worth more than ~$2.8milion, things get a little more complicated... and if you do renounce, (b) you need to pay U.S. exit taxes (again if your properties and investments have gone up in value, you have to pay capital gains as if you sold them all on the day you leave/renounce).