If a client gives us his W2, how to add the tax? Should be add federal tax, social security tax and Medicare tax? Is this right or some other way to calculate?
You must use the tax off the 1040/1040NR plus any state returns. You can not use the tax withheld on the W2. You can also add the social security and medicare to the income tax as calculated on the US tax return. Be warned it is a bit more complicated that just this as the CRA will allocated the tax on the US return to various income items on it so if there is any Canadian sourced income on a 1040 you will not be able to take all the tax. Warn your client that the odds are very high that the CRA will question the foreign tax credits and if you have not done it right they will change it and he will owe more - possibly significantly more - that what you reported on the Canadian return. Alternatively - find someone who knows what they are doing to do this client. This is not simple.
First -Determine if he need to do a US income tax report. Did he also have earned income in Canada?
Once established, ask the question again because it changes everything
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The client has no Canadian income, the client is a Canadian citizen working in the US and the only income is from the US (W2). Due to covid restrictions, the client was in Canada for few months and didn’t do the US return yet. I advised the Client to do the US return first. Just wondering if we can get the required info from W2 rather than 1040/1040NR?
One assumes that this is a new client, and nobody presently knows what his tax-residency is yet?
Needs more work establishing history, foreign jurisdiction tax filings, tax residency etc
Does not appear straight forward.
Putting in the numbers from the W2 is usually a waste of time.
You can not. You can pull any number out of the air that you want to put in but you will have to amend the Canadian return afterwards to have the correct foreign tax credits if you do the Canadian return first. You will create extra work for yourself if you don’t insist on the 1040/1040NR being done first. He’s still got a month - tell him to get it done.
Thanks, everyone for your help