Unless you are very active in Canada-US cross-border tax planning, you probably are not aware of the fact that, a few years ago, the 5th Protocol to the Canada-U.S. Tax Convention (“the Treaty”) created a problem in connection with the ownership of Canadian Unlimited Liability Companies (“ULCs”) by U.S. Residents.

ULCs are a strange feature of corporate law-they are corporations with unlimited liability. At one time, Nova Scotia was the only jurisdiction in Canada that had these entities, and they were modeled after similar entities existing under UK corporate law. However, some years ago Alberta and British Columbia jumped on the ULC bandwagon.

From a Canadian tax perspective, ULCs are taxed in the same way as “normal” Canadian Read More