Changing Resident country a year after becoming a non resident of one's home country

[freedomseeker]

For tax reasons, and the ability to more easily become a non resident of canada, I am considering setting up residence in europe for a year as my home country taxes my pension income less with countries with a tax treaty.

Larger however is my investment portfolio.

My pension will be deposited in a wise account and sent to a bank accounts in the channel islands, and a bank where i reside.

I would love to set up residency in a tax free jurisdiction, but they would tax my pension more.

So my question is, after I become a resident in a higher tax jurisdiction that has a favourable tax treaty for my pension and the funds are continued to be sent via wise to at least one of the same bank accounts, would Canada be notified if i suddenly took up residency in another country? Could they find out? Do they run audits after someone has left for more then a year?

Thanks.

 

[Luca von Dubai Setup]

Hello, normally in Europe if you want to stay for more than 180 days you have to pay taxes, why don't you look at Dubai

 

[lavel]

Could they find out? Do they run audits after someone has left for more then a year?

Wise is not reporting yet, that would mean that if you relocate to a tax friendly country and they after a year or two start reporting than Canada will not be notified as far as I understand it.

 

[botero]

I wrote about this in another thread:

Safely leaving the tax net of a developed country like Canada requires some planning. The CRA (Canada's tax agency) doesn't like it when Canadian residents move directly to tax havens. They will pay extra close attention to you and any Canadian tie, even your passport, can be used to justify the taxation of your worldwide income.

Therefore, if you want to break ties cleanly with Canada, I'd recommend that you first obtain residency and ties in a 'friendly' intermediary OECD country with a double taxation agreement with Canada. In your case, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Chile could be options.

Once you have this paper residency at the intermediary country, you should break off as many secondary ties with Canada that you can (e.g. bank accounts, memberships, health card, driver's license, etc) and submit your last emigrant tax return with Canada. Since the intermediary country has a double tax agreement with Canada and is not a tax haven, the CRA won't care if you don't get rid of all of your secondary ties. Primary ties will matter of course.

You would then be free to become a resident anywhere without having to be on the CRA's radars.

Going to a high tax European country could cause issues since a lot of them have similar or even stricter rules than Canada for cutting tax ties. That is why I suggest looking into OECD countries with more flexible tax residency rules (i.e. in the developing world) which have double-tax treaties with Canada.

 

[TheCryptoAnt]

Wise is not reporting yet

They've already started or plan to start next January.

 

[freedomseeker]

Hello, normally in Europe if you want to stay for more than 180 days you have to pay taxes, why don't you look at Dubai

Because Canada withholds 25% of my pension if i choose Dubai over say Portugal (15%).

ideally I am trying to find if there is a way to sever my ties to Canada by moving to a country with a tax treaty with Canada and then set up my residence someplace else. (ie say I set up residency in Portugal for a year and don't change my banking then set up residency in Dubai or Paraguay would Canada be notified or would the notification be solely between my latest country of residency and my new one?