I am 50, living in the US as a legal resident alien. I have a house in Canada that I have been renting out and would like to sell. I have never lived in the house, it was an investment. I have been paying Canadian real estate taxes on it and paying US taxes on rent collected, here in the US. I am Canadian living in the US as a resident alien - I am not a resident of Canada. I would like to sell the place in Canada - take the profits - and buy another place also in Canada with the money generated from the sale. All of the money would go into the new place. The time between the sell and purchase of the new place would be about a month. Will I have to pay capitol gains taxes if I take the profits (sold vs original purchase price) and use the money to buy another place?

Synopsis: I am a 50 year old Canadian resident alien in the US and have a rental house in Canada and am interested in selling it and buying another place as a rental property.

My first thought was to buy another rental property in Canada but am also interested in the tax implications of selling the house in Canada ($250K profit anticipated) and buying a rental Condo in Florida for $250K. I would take the profits from the Canadian sale and invest in a new rental property in the US - time lapse between the sell & buy would be about a month. Please let me know if I would I be subject to capital gains tax or other US taxes if I was to make this happen. Thanks for your insight.

You can defer the taxes by doing a 1031 exchange. This IS allowed on properties in a foreign country, but you need to find a company who will do the 10321 exchange transactions for you in Canada.

Search the Internet for ma company that will do the 1031 exchange work in Canada. There are multiple companies that handle these exchanges routinely in the United States, so I doubt it would be excessively difficult to find such a company for Canadian properties.

Thank you very much - this is very helpful information. I really appreciate the time you took to answer my question.

Glad to help; contact me at [email protected] when it comes time to file your 2010 tax return.

Do NOT try to file that return yourself. Returns with a 1031 exchange has special requirements that requires professional attention.