I commute to the US for work — do I file Form RC267?
Form RC267 is the one aimed at you if you are resident in Canada, you cross the border to perform your employment in the United States, and you contribute to your US employer's retirement plan. Those three things together are the test. It is not enough to have a US plan, and it is not enough to work for a US employer; the form is built around the commuter pattern, where the employment is performed on the other side of the border and you return to your Canadian home. If your working pattern does not match that description, a different plan-contribution form is likely to be the right one.
Which of the plan contribution forms applies to me?
Three plan-contribution forms cover this ground, and choosing between them turns on two facts: whether you are a commuter, and where the employment was actually performed. It does not turn on what kind of plan your employer runs. People usually approach it the other way round, starting from the plan documents, and end up on the wrong form. Set out the working pattern for the year first — where you were physically working, how you got there, where you were living — and the form follows from that description rather than from the plan.
Does the type of US retirement plan decide which form I use?
No. The plan type is the thing most people reach for first and it is not the deciding factor. What decides it is commuter status and where the employment was performed. That is worth saying plainly because the plan paperwork is the document in front of you, it is detailed, and it looks authoritative, so it pulls the decision towards itself. The plan documents still matter — they evidence the contributions you are claiming — but they answer a later question. Establish the working pattern, choose the form on that basis, and then use the plan records to support the figures.
Can I deduct US employer plan contributions on my Canadian return?
That is what this form is for. A Canadian resident commuting to work in the United States contributes to the employer's plan out of US employment income, and the deduction on the Canadian side is treaty-based rather than automatic — it has to be claimed on the right form for your circumstances. The claim depends on the employment pattern being what you say it is, so the record of where the work was performed is part of the claim and not background. Without it the deduction rests on assertion, which is a weak place to be if the CRA asks.
I stopped commuting partway through the year — does this still apply?
A year in which the working pattern changed is a year that needs looking at in parts rather than as a whole. The form is chosen on commuter status and on where the employment was performed, so a year that starts with a daily border crossing and ends with the work being performed somewhere else does not have one obvious answer. Set out the periods, with the dates the pattern changed and what it changed to, before deciding which plan-contribution form covers the contributions made in each part of the year. That work is also what supports the position later.
What happens if I never claim the deduction at all?
The retirement saving ends up deducted in neither country. The contribution reduces nothing on the US side in the way you might expect it to help you here, and without the treaty-based claim on the Canadian return it reduces nothing here either, so the same money is saved once and relieved nowhere. That is the outcome the form exists to prevent. It is a quiet loss rather than an assessment or a penalty, which is exactly why it goes unnoticed for years at a time among people who cross the border to work.
Is double taxation legal?
Yes. Nothing prevents two countries from taxing the same income under their own domestic law — each is exercising its own jurisdiction. What treaties and credit systems do is relieve the outcome rather than prohibit the charge, and relief is generally something you must claim on a return or a form, not something applied automatically. Miss the claim and the double charge stands. Double taxation explains the mechanism.
Do Canada and the United States share tax information?
Yes, through more than one channel. The treaty has an exchange-of-information article that supports both routine and on-request exchange. Separately, an intergovernmental agreement has Canadian financial institutions identify US-reportable accounts and report them to the CRA, which passes them to the IRS, with the reverse flow for Canadian residents. Most other country pairs use the Common Reporting Standard for the same purpose. See FATCA reporting.
