US-based applicants, let's connect here

[JERiv]

I was so relieved to see this thread. I'm a US nurse and I'm just so fed up with where our healthcare system is headed, We decided its time to move on. Explaining it to my friends was easy, some of them said 'stay and fight' others said 'good for you'. But the heat I have gotten from my conservative family is unbelievable. Some of them wont even talk to me, others wont talk to me except to try to convince me that America is perfect and I will regret leaving and that I'm terrible for even trying. Things have just gotten so hard for my wife and I here, I don't feel safe here anymore.
I've finished submitting our APR and now we're in the wait and see phase. I'm rather worried because American employers wont write the detailed employment verification letters that the CIC expects and that's where we're most likely to be rejected. I cant exactly explain to them that I'm immigrating, (I tried that once and they decided to start processing things very slowly and erroneously to prevent me from being able to move).
Does anyone know the likelihood of rejection based off of that? My nursing license through the CNO is being processed as well so hopefully my license comes in at the same time.

Welcome!

On your question employment verification letters, you may want to go with sending your paycheck stub and whatever else you could get from your employers.

Here's what we went through for our employment verification letters:

1) My wife didn't want to let her current boss know, so she went with the route of bypassing them entirely, walking to the main HR office, and asking for it. That worked. She also asked some of her ex-bosses directly (the nice ones), who just typed up a letter for her without making her jump through hoops or going to HR for it.

2) We had issues with my ex-employer (multinational corporation with 49.5K employees for whom I worked for 17 years). My ex-boss didn't want to do anything that could possibly get him in trouble ("Hi, yes he worked here" was apparently too much to ask...), so he sent me to main HR. That was a waste of time. All they provide is an employment verification service for US companies ("The Work Number"), but it's not used for immigration purposes. I just printed what was in "The Work Number" website and sent it along with paycheck stubs. That was accepted.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it probably is not a straightforward process in many cases. So as long as you show an effort and provide some good evidence they will hopefully let it go through.

Good luck with your application!!!

 

[JERiv]

I was so relieved to see this thread. I'm a US nurse and I'm just so fed up with where our healthcare system is headed, We decided its time to move on. Explaining it to my friends was easy, some of them said 'stay and fight' others said 'good for you'. But the heat I have gotten from my conservative family is unbelievable. Some of them wont even talk to me, others wont talk to me except to try to convince me that America is perfect and I will regret leaving and that I'm terrible for even trying. Things have just gotten so hard for my wife and I here, I don't feel safe here anymore.

On the healthcare thing, yeah... it looks like as of yesterday parts of the ACA are once again on the chopping block, to be potentially sacrificed in the altar of more tax cuts for folks who don't need them.

This tug of war will likely keep happening for the foreseeable future. I just wonder what will happen if they eventually succeed and tens of millions end up without health insurance. Will Americans even care?

Same with guns. I don't really think things will ever change for the better at this point. There's almost a mass shooting every day in the US (that's not hyperbole, sadly). Unlike in other countries, America has proven that no tragedy is big enough to change how we treat guns as a society. It's all "mental health" while allowing folks with mental health issues to have easy access to weapons, and "thoughts and prayers" to folks who got shot while taking no concrete action to stop it from happening again. I very much hope I'm proven wrong in the future, though.

 

[BrittanyElaina]

I would advise you to do your landing on the first trip through. When landing, tell them you are going to be going back to the US prior to getting your PR card to settle things, pack up, etc., and they *may* go ahead and put a visa stamp in your passport (They may not, because it seems to confuse people when I show them mine- at the end of the day it's not a big deal). After you soft land, you can continue to use your US passport to enter Canada at airports. [The main issue at airports & PR cards is individuals can use the PR Card to be allowed to board the plane. As US passport holders, we don't have this issue so having the PR Card itself is rather useless to us on a plane.]

Traveling by land you can use your CoPR or your passport. I've talked to three different CBSA officers and all have said the same thing: Don't bother us with a request for PRTD because you can easily come into the country using your passport.

Thank you! Sounds like I will more than likely do my soft landing the next time I go then. I will probably just explain the situation to the officer and allow them to decide what is the best course of action for me.

I was the most concerned about using my US passport to enter at airports after landing (but before receiving the PR card) as I know that land border crossing won't be an issue. But this also means that I will need to use a forwarding address to have my PR card sent to me in the US, so I hope that won't cause any issues, though I will be glad to have the landing process out of the way.

 

[mgnlky]

Thank you! Sounds like I will more than likely do my soft landing the next time I go then. I will probably just explain the situation to the officer and allow them to decide what is the best course of action for me.

I was the most concerned about using my US passport to enter at airports after landing (but before receiving the PR card) as I know that land border crossing won't be an issue. But this also means that I will need to use a forwarding address to have my PR card sent to me in the US, so I hope that won't cause any issues, though I will be glad to have the landing process out of the way.

There are 2 sides of using your US passport in airports; one is the airline itself checking them Stateside to ensure you're legally allowed to go to Canada (as US citizens, we are). The other is obviously cleaning Canadian customs. The trickiest thing I found at the airport was when placing my passport in the automatic clearing kiosk, whatever you do, never select the "Immigration" option after your first landing!

It will be easier in the long run if you do. Use a friend's address is possible. They won't send PR Cards to foreign addresses or post office boxes.

 

[BrittanyElaina]

There are 2 sides of using your US passport in airports; one is the airline itself checking them Stateside to ensure you're legally allowed to go to Canada (as US citizens, we are). The other is obviously cleaning Canadian customs. The trickiest thing I found at the airport was when placing my passport in the automatic clearing kiosk, whatever you do, never select the "Immigration" option after your first landing!

It will be easier in the long run if you do. Use a friend's address is possible. They won't send PR Cards to foreign addresses or post office boxes.

Good to know! After my landing I'll just treat it like a regular trip then until I have my PR card.

Unfortunately I don't have any friends or family in Canada to have it mailed to, but I've found forwarding companies that provide a real Canadian address instead of P.O. Box so I'll be using one of the those.

 

[JERiv]

The trickiest thing I found at the airport was when placing my passport in the automatic clearing kiosk, whatever you do, never select the "Immigration" option after your first landing!

... what's the "Immigration" option? Is that what we use that for our COPR landing?

 

[moose17]

@JERiv, same here on prepping to move quickly! It's a bit stressful not knowing how that's going to go, but we figure we have to pare down belongings and pack up the few things we'll bring that don't get used daily (mainly family memorabilia type stuff) so we're starting on that. It helps us get that inventory a little more realistic too. Honestly the biggest stress related to that is housing - getting a rental at all in Toronto is intimidating, so imagining getting it on short notice is even harder! But at least we'd have a source of income to show a landlord, so there's that.

A Thanksgiving reveal is ballsy! I hope it goes well. You just never know - my FIL was shockingly enthusiastic, while my mother going from excited to terrified for us was a shock too the other way. I hope you get a pleasant surprise out of it!

@Cassiemassey86, I think just submit everything you can (maybe do a CSE if you come up with a new document? double-check on that if it comes up though). I had some friends in HR say that proof of employment letters are routine requests for lots of reasons and sure enough, my husband's HR person didn't bat an eye. Luckily he had the job description from when he was hired so they threw that in so his boss wasn't involved at all. Can you make something like that work? My HR friends said claiming it was for a personal matter or financial matter (moving for affordable health care seems financial to me ) would be fine, but yeah we had a very vague white lie planned in case my husband got asked for more details. We were also prepared to submit that job description in the app if HR wouldn't include it in the letter. I've seen a few different reassurances around that CIC knows stuff happens and people can't always submit a nice neat document and tries to be reasonable when that happens.

I haven't attempted the WhatsApp group but I'm willing to start a secret group on fb for us if anyone's interested. Granted, I already have a secondary account under a pseudonym so that's easier for me to propose but the offer stands. It might be nice for everything from talking about things we wouldn't put publicly (lest any employers or family dig it up) to sharing victorious landing photos that we otherwise have to keep to ourselves

 

[mgnlky]

... what's the "Immigration" option? Is that what we use that for our COPR landing?

Flying through Vancouver, there are kiosks were you "self-clear" customs before actually going through talking to an officer. One of the options is "immigration." After you land, don't select that option! lol [In my case I had soft landed in Sept, and was landing with the cat and had to go thru customs instead of using Nexus. So I confused myself AND the officer.]

 

[canada_eagle]

Just curious - did anyone figure out the tax implications for a US-based person becoming a Canadian PR? Do we pay double tax (Oh Please God No!) or do we pay tax in the country where we are currently working (until making complete move to Canada)?

And considering the tax rate difference between US and Canada, how does the mutual tax treaty between the two countries work?

Not a tax lawyer so below is my layman's understanding. Don't do your planning solely based on my explanations.

Its complicated. The tax treaty does help though. Just after landing, first step would be to see if you are considered a Canadian resident for that tax year. Unfortunately there is no hard and fast rule i.e no objective rules that Canada revenue uses, they just have guidelines i.e it is subjective. So if they decide you have ties to Canada via property, spouse staying in Canada, Health card etc, you will be liable for Canadian taxes. If not then no Canadian taxes. I have not looked at US side since I know I will be liable for US taxes and could not be bothered with residency rules.

The tax treaty helps because any federal tax you pay in either country is considered as tax payment to both countries (simplified explanation). So if you made 100k and are liable to both US and Canada. Say 30K to US and 30K to Canada. You can pay one of those countries and claim tax credit to the other country and hence pay 0 in tax to that country. If you owe more to one country say 45k to US and 30K to Canada, you can pay Canada 30K and then 15K to US.

The treaty also allow you to deduct retirement contributions like 401K from both countries. You are however only allowed to deduct to the max of each countries contribution limits.

 

[kynno]

Just wondering if anyone else is doing or has done this.

Hopefully, if everything works out with my application and I get PR, I was thinking about approaching my current employer in the US and try to make a deal with them so I can work remotely while I live in Canada. Getting their approval aside, if this has been done before, how exactly does it work? Especially when it comes to paying taxes and such? I would think my employer will no longer pay for my benefits since I would no longer reside in the US but will I pay the taxes in the States or in Canada? Note that I'm not a US-Citizen nor a GC holder.

Any thoughts?

 

[kynno]

Anything on the above ^^

 

[moose17]

Anything on the above ^^

I believe I've heard of people doing that, and it's something I may end up pursuing. If I do that, my hope is by not having to pay for my health insurance they may boost the salary. I don't know how taxes are affected though. I'm planning to find a recommendation for a tax person from another American in Toronto and leave them to it.

BTW, I read more about WhatsApp and it does do photos and stuff I guess so if anyone wants to go that direction again I guess I'm in (I was previously less so because of it being tied to my phone number but eh, sure).

 

[JERiv]

Anything on the above ^^

I was hoping to do that, but it didn't really work out. I know it's doable, but I'm thinking each company will likely have a different take on it. Bottom line is that they may not feel that it's worth the hassle. Whether you want to ask or not likely depends on what your plan is, and who you work for.

@moose17 I'd be good with one of those. It would be interesting so see/hear from folks as they make it over to Canada.

 

[kynno]

@JERiv For the company that I currently work at, I know they've contracted people before and the possibility to work remotely is definitely there, plus. I haven't told them of my plan to move to Canada yet since I'm waiting to have everything finalized before I strike up that conversation with the owner. Plus I have a feeling they'd want me to stick around. In the meantime, I just wanted to find out about the details on how this would work. Would I have to setup myself as contractor in Canada, how would paying taxes play into it, etc. That way, when I do strike up the conversation, I know what I can ask for or offer if given the opportunity.

BTW, do you already have PR?

@moose17 that's exactly what I was thinking. Since you are not living in the US, the employer should not have to pay for health care or any other benefits for that matter. That should make easier on them I would think? Though I don't think it would boost your salary all that much.

 

[JERiv]

@JERiv For the company that I currently work at, I know they've contracted people before and the possibility to work remotely is definitely there, plus. I haven't told them of my plan to move to Canada yet since I'm waiting to have everything finalized before I strike up that conversation with the owner. Plus I have a feeling they'd want me to stick around. In the meantime, I just wanted to find out about the details on how this would work. Would I have to setup myself as contractor in Canada, how would paying taxes play into it, etc. That way, when I do strike up the conversation, I know what I can ask for or offer if given the opportunity.

BTW, do you already have PR?

@moose17 that's exactly what I was thinking. Since you are not living in the US, the employer should not have to pay for health care or any other benefits for that matter. That should make easier on them I would think? Though I don't think it would boost your salary all that much.

We received our COPR and are doing a soft landing next month. So not really PRs yet, but just about.

I'm not going to be a good resource on the WAH for US company from Canada, since I didn't actually do it and we still haven't moved. On my old job, I actually quit to be a stay-at-home dad back in December. It was a long time planned.

Since my old bosses told me (multiple times) to let them know if I wanted to return, I reached out to ask if it would be possible with the caveat of me working from Canada (I was a full-time WAH for 8 years). They said they'd look into it, and that it shouldn't be a problem to work from Canada, since they have folks who work there (I think outsourced or contract, though, which is very different). I asked several months ago, and every time I followed it up was "still looking into it". At this point, I haven't heard from them for about 2 months, which in itself is an answer. C'est la vie, moving on.

Do you know if any of those contractors at your company work from Canada (or any other country for that matter)? Reaching out to them on the side on a "what if" type conversation would likely answer a lot of your questions.

Bottom line, my only real suggestion is to have a backup plan in case the answer is no. You still work there, so you have a much better chance. Good luck!!!