Dual residency, dual citizenship, U.S.-situs assets, and the treaty work each occasions.
Two systems, two professions, one position to be held.
Cross-border families do not, in our experience, lack able counsel. They lack a single point of accountability across two countries that does not naturally produce one. Canadian tax counsel attends to the Canadian return; U.S. tax counsel attends to the U.S. return. Canadian estate counsel drafts the Canadian wills set; U.S. estate counsel drafts the U.S. one. Each is excellent within their own jurisdiction. The integration — the place where the two systems meet, contradict, or compound — is the place where most cross-border architecture quietly fails.
The architectural friction accumulates in specific places. The U.S. estate-tax exposure of a Canadian-resident, non-U.S.-citizen with U.S.-situs property above the unified-credit threshold available under Article XXIX-B of the Canada–U.S. Tax Treaty. The U.S. citizen resident in Canada whose TFSA is opaque to the Internal Revenue Service in ways the Canadian advisor rarely flags. The PFIC exposure of a U.S. person holding Canadian mutual funds. The grantor-trust treatment of a Canadian trust into which a U.S. beneficiary has been added. The mismatch between Canadian and U.S. recognition of capital gains on the same disposition in the same year.
Senatus serves as the architectural mandate that holds the family’s position across both systems in coherent relation. The Canadian counsel continues to act on the Canadian side. The U.S. counsel continues to act on the U.S. side. Senatus convenes the table, holds the architectural map across both jurisdictions, and remains accountable for the integrity of the whole — through every cross-border decision the family is asked to make.
Four cross-border points the calendar of a single jurisdiction tends to miss.
Each is composed in coordination with the family’s Canadian counsel and U.S. counsel jointly. Each, attended to in time, materially shapes the family’s position on the day a treaty election, a deemed disposition, or a U.S. estate-tax return becomes operative.
U.S.-situs assets, weighed against the U.S. estate-tax exposure.
U.S. real property, U.S.-listed securities held outside qualified plans, and other U.S.-situs assets carry potential U.S. estate-tax exposure for the non-U.S.-citizen non-resident, mitigated — not eliminated — by the unified-credit allocation under Article XXIX-B of the Canada–U.S. Tax Treaty. The position is reviewed against the family’s actual exposure, restructured where the architecture warrants, and documented in coordination with U.S. counsel before the next U.S. property is acquired.
Dual citizenship, treated as the structural constraint it is.
The U.S. citizen resident in Canada files a U.S. return for life unless the citizenship is formally relinquished. PFIC exposure on Canadian mutual funds, U.S. tax-opacity of TFSAs and RESPs, foreign-account reporting under FBAR and FATCA, and the grantor-trust implications of a Canadian trust with U.S. beneficiaries — each is a structural constraint the architecture is composed around, not in spite of.
The cross-border wills set, drafted as one instrument across two systems.
A single Canadian will is rarely sufficient where U.S.-situs assets, U.S. beneficiaries, or U.S.-resident family members are involved. The cross-border wills set — Canadian wills, U.S. wills, and where appropriate a U.S. revocable trust — is drafted in coordination so that probate in either jurisdiction does not undo the work of probate in the other. The estate plan is reviewed annually against the family’s evolving cross-border position.
The relocation, sequenced before the calendar makes the decision for you.
Whether the family is contemplating departure from Canada (with the deemed disposition under s. 128.1 of the Income Tax Act), arrival in Canada (with the resulting valuation date for purposes of the U.S. position), or the snowbird question of cumulative days of presence, the relocation is sequenced architecturally rather than triggered administratively. The composition of the steps before, during, and after the move materially shapes the tax outcome on both sides.
One mandate, two jurisdictions, the table held in both.
The engagement begins with a documented review of the family’s cross-border position — the residency and citizenship of every family member, the situs of every consequential asset, the existing wills set in each jurisdiction, the trust positions in each, and the treaty elections currently in place. The review is circulated to the family’s Canadian and U.S. counsel jointly before any restructuring is recommended.
From that foundation, the relationship operates on the cadence the cross-border position requires: an annual joint review with both Canadian and U.S. counsel at the table, working sessions ahead of any acquisition, disposition, or relocation event, and continuing coordination across the years that compound the family’s position in both systems.
“The family had retained me on the Florida property eight years before they retained Senatus on the architecture above it. By the time we were drafting the U.S. revocable trust, Senatus had already convened the Canadian wills counsel, the cross-border tax counsel, and the family’s accountant in Toronto. The U.S. document I drafted dropped into a structure that was already composed for it.”
If the family’s position spans both systems, the next step is a private conversation.
Senatus accepts a limited number of new relationships each year, predominantly through private referral. A member of the Private Office will respond, in confidence, within twenty-four hours.
Request a Private ConversationTwelve adjacent audiences.
Most principals belong to more than one. The architecture is composed for the family in front of us; the descriptions below are how families most often arrive.