IME the CRA don't really care all that much about your relationship to your employer/client if your employer/client is overseas. As long as you declare all your income and pay the appropriate Canadian taxes and CPP premiums on it. As said above, they can get very anal about foreign tax credits when they put their mind to it.

If the payer insists on the relationship being employer/employee then you will have to approach your tax office in the UK and have them issue a NT (no tax) code for you. I am not sure what they will want to see before doing this - maybe others have some experience?

The other thing is it may not be your choice. The UK employer may decide to put you on a contract for services which is what mine did. Then the onus shifts to you for making sure you meet your responsibilities and where.

I have that one plus two other Canadian contracts for services. I have to put the UK one through my Canadian home business partnership as that is what the UK employer stipulated that I do.

S

Agree about the CRA. My experience is also that as long as you declare everything and pay taxes etc that's what they want to see.

As I said use a Canadian accountant for your first year so you know what you're doing. As well, we found it was not useful to try to find an accountant who could advise on both UK HMRC stuff and also Canadian CRA matters. We had a telephone consultation with someone in the UK over our UK stuff (when there was a CGT issue so something entirely different to your issue) and used a separate Canadian accountant for the CRA filing.

S

Thanks all! This forum is always so helpful!

Might be worth noting that the CRA is sacking staff all over the place to cut costs.

That could mean that they won't be paying too much attention. It could also mean that they will be putting more focus on potentially high-value 'targets'.

Read 'foreign money'.

I let my accountant deal with this crap.

This is very useful information. I will most likely move to Ontario in 2017 and initially plan to provide services to clients in the UK.

I'd be most grateful if somebody from this discussion could message me with an accountant recommendation. I'd rather pay an expert to help me get things right in the first year, as well as for the peace of mind.

Will you be moving here as a PR?

Just a friendly note: you won't be able to send or receive PMs just yet.

Ah yes. Good point. Yes, I will have PR. Apologies for not including such an important detail!

I only asked for a PM because I didn't want to be misinterpreted as soliciting for advertising! Well, I guess there's no hurry. I won't be needing an accountant for at least 3 months. Hopefully I can receive PMs by that time.

Cheers.

Where in Ontario? If it's Ottawa, I can suggest someone (my own accountant, even though I don't live in Ontario).

Thanks for replying Souvy, I've been avidly reading your employment-related posts over the last year, amongst others! We've already adopted your wonderfully succinct "Ottineau" name in our house.

My answer to your question is "it's complicated" ..... well isn't it always?

When we land, we'll be staying with my spouse's family in Toronto for a few weeks.

However, because of the high cost of living in the GTA (real estate), we plan to make a few road trips during the first couple of weeks to check out more affordable cities for our first full year of residence. We've visited a few smaller towns already, but neither of us have been to Ottawa before and it is definitely on our list and under consideration. We're back in the UK at present, awaiting COPR.

Certainly, having the opportunity of remote work is going to be extremely beneficial in helping us to find our feet and get settled without being tied to one small area.

Anyway, whilst nothing is definite at this stage, we may well end up in Ottawa; so a recommendation would still be much appreciated.

As I said above. There's a form online. One fills it in and sends it to CRA who confirm that the applicant is a Canadian taxpayer. This is then sent to HMRC who issue a no tax code.

If you do come for a recce up here, check both sides of the river. Property is much cheaper in Gatineau than it is in Ottawa (although taxes are higher). A lot would depend on your income and family situation (kids?).

Language isn't really a problem, even if it is Quebec. Lots of people in Gatineau speak English and I believe that there are lots of Brits in the western area (Aylmer).

Be aware that most of the residential areas of Gatineau are much closer to downtown Ottawa than most of the Ottawa burbs are.

I have used this one https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...individual.pdf for clients who had UK tax taken off their UK pension or royalty payments.

Thanks Souvy. I must apologise: I didn't see your reply last week.

Family situation is that we don't have kids and there's no chance of us accidentally having any (!).

It's interesting that you mention Aylmer because it had already caught my eye during online research. The outcome of all my research was that most people were saying that we could be financially better off on the Quebec side, but only if we had kids because of the significant financial support for children from the government; but obviously we wouldn't benefit from that at all.

Quick calculations showed that we'd be several thousand dollars worse off after taxes in Quebec than Ontario, which is a shame because the cheaper housing is extremely tempting. I saw a number of houses that I liked the look of in Aylmer on property websites as well as a whole bunch of properties in the more rural Val-des-Monts area North of Gatineau.

I came to the conclusion that things would be difficult for us North of the river, especially as English speaking settlers. However, your words have encouraged me to reconsider; I now feel that we would be silly to write it off without firsthand experience. In any case, we'll definitely take a recce in Ottawa and we'll be sure to drive around Gatineau and surrounds whilst we are at it.

It's great to hear from somebody that's actually doing it, rather than just sitting hear trying to imagine all the possible scenarios and outcomes.

Have you checked municipal taxes? I think they are somewhat higher in Ottawa than over here on the dark side. Beer is much cheaper in QC, too!

Val-des-Monts is very rural.

When you come to Gatineau, don't be put off by the bits you see first when you cross the bridge(s). They are not the nice bits.