Living in Canada on tourist visa, working for UK company

[IanBradbury]

Hello all

I'm not sure if anyone will have experience with this, but i thought i'd see!

My company is letting me work remotely from Canada once I move there. The plan originally was to complete an outland spousal visa application (my wife is Canadian I'm from the UK) then once the visa is (hopefully) approved, move to Canada and then I would be paid by the Canadian owner of my UK based company and they would invoice the UK company monthly going forward.

However I'm considering the option of going to Canada in the next few months on a tourist visa and applying inland, then either (a) continue to work and be paid in £s into a UK bank account by my UK company or (b) apply for the temporary work visa (which I believe can still be applied for once your inland application is in) and continue as my first paragraph and be paid by the Canadian company.

My questions are:

• If I chose option (a), firstly is this legal to be in Canada on a tourist visa and work for my UK company remotely, secondly is anyone aware of what the tax arrangement would be? (I'm of course aware that I would have to either apply to extend my tourist visa every 6 months or leave and return to the country but that is feasible).
• Or if option (b) does anyone know roughly how long the temporary visa takes to be (hopefully) approved after submitting application and during this time where I don't have the temporary visa, would I be able to work for my UK company - presumably that may be answered by the answer to the first point.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. I have googled and contacted the CRA others but am getting conflicting info.

Kind regards

Ian

 

[Rob_TO]

• If I chose option (a), firstly is this legal to be in Canada on a tourist visa and work for my UK company remotely, secondly is anyone aware of what the tax arrangement would be? (I'm of course aware that I would have to either apply to extend my tourist visa every 6 months or leave and return to the country but that is feasible).

It's perfectly fine to work here remotely while on visitor status, as long as payments are coming from a source outside Canada, and no Canadian clients are involved.

• Or if option (b) does anyone know roughly how long the temporary visa takes to be (hopefully) approved after submitting application and during this time where I don't have the temporary visa, would I be able to work for my UK company - presumably that may be answered by the answer to the first point.

If you submit an INLAND app along with Open Work Permit, you would get the OWP in around 4 months. After you got OWP, you could then transfer your work to Canadian division.

While in Canada as a visitor, you may become a resident for tax purposes so would need to pay some Canadian taxes on your income regardless of which way you proceed. If you need to file taxes with no OWP/SIN, you can apply for an ITN (Individual Tax Number) as a non-resident.

If you don't urgently need the OWP since you can work remotely, applying OUTLAND through the London office and extending your visitor status as needed may be the quicker process to get PR vs the INLAND way. Also applying outland gives you more flexibility to leave/re-enter Canada as needed. With an INLAND app you put your app at risk every time you wanted to leave for whatever reason.

 

[IanBradbury]

While in Canada as a visitor, you would become a resident for tax purposes so would need to pay some Canadian taxes on your income regardless of which way you proceed.

That's great, thanks so much for taking the time to reply. With regard to paying taxes, do you know of a good source I can research to find out how this works? I would assume if it is being paid into a UK bank account I wouldn't be paying taxes. I assume I won't be paying tax twice, so I'd just like to research further.

Kind regards

Ian

 

[Rob_TO]

That's great, thanks so much for taking the time to reply. With regard to paying taxes, do you know of a good source I can research to find out how this works? I would assume if it is being paid into a UK bank account I wouldn't be paying taxes. I assume I won't be paying tax twice, so I'd just like to research further.

Kind regards

Ian

Yes if you're a resident for tax purposes, you still must pay Canadian taxes on world wide income earned in other countries.

Basically you will only pay tax up to the higher-taxed country. i.e. if you pay 30% tax to UK, and Canadian tax rate is 40%, you would just pay the 10% difference to Canada. Of if you pay all the tax to Canada, you wouldn't owe anything to UK. You will need to talk with someone experienced with Canada/UK income to determine exactly who to pay tax to first, and how to file in each country.

I believe once you've spent 6 months of the year in Canada, you're then a tax resident and liable to file taxes. Also having a spouse in Canada is a further tie to confirm tax status here.