[WSBAPT] Canadian Owner of Washington Real Estate

[Tim Burkart]

Tom

You need to contact Canadian tax counsel.  If the sister is subject to the Canadian tax system, transfer of appreciated property to a revocable trust is a taxable event in Canada as would a direct gift.

Tim

From: Thomas Fiscus [mailto:tjf at thomasjfiscus.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2019 2:19 PM
To: WSBA Probate & Trust Listserv <wsbapt at lists.wsbarppt.com>
Subject: [WSBAPT] Canadian Owner of Washington Real Estate


Hi Listmates –

This may be a common problem for attorneys of our ilk in Washington, but new to me.  Client and her sister are Canadian.  The sister owns Washington real property in which the client lives with her U.S. citizen husband and two U.S. citizen daughters.  Sister wants to transfer the property to my client, or the client’s daughters, with minimal costs in fees and taxes.  Sister doesn’t want to sell the property, so as to avoid FIRPTA.  RCW 11.20.090 would appear to allow the Sister to create a revocable living trust in Washington and distribute the property at death to the daughters, whom I believe could claim a stepped up basis at that time.  The property would probably still be under the Washington estate tax threshold.  The Sister could instead bequeath the property to the daughters via Will, but I’m unclear about the Canadian tax consequences of that.  Anyone have an idea how best to minimize hassle and taxes in this situation?

Thanks
Tom Fiscus


Law Office of Thomas J. Fiscus
Box 1167
Eastsound, WA 98245
Ph 360-376-3988
WSBA # 44741
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/wsbapt/attachments/20190501/4e17991e/attachment.html>