Late fees for over staying VISA

About renewing your passport:

To get to the point -- stop worrying about renewing your passport. In legalese -- obtaining a Canadian passport is a right of citizenship. Once you become a citizen the federal government cannot deprive you of this status, so they cannot refuse you a new passport, unless a federal judge orders the police to hold your passport pursuant to a criminal investigation, or if you are convicted of a crime until your sentence has finished. Otherwise, your country of residence is irrelevant. There are Canadians who haven't set foot in the country for 20 years who travel on Canadian passports.

About medical coverage:

To get to the point --- The feds don't set the rules about medical coverage, the provinces set the rules. In practical terms, a province generally does not find out when and for how long you are physically present in the province, unless you tell them. So if you want to fib .... On the other hand, Juanno says that Alberta cancelled his health care coverage, so I wonder how it found out.

More technical details --- Every province that I know of says you must be physically present in the province for half a year plus one day in any twelve-month period in order to qualify. The half-year does not need to be than six consecutive months. E. g., you can enter the province for three months and then leave, and do this four times within a 12-month period, and you still qualify. However, it is the feds that keep the records of your entrances and exits from Canada, and currently they do not share these records with the provinces except in occasional cases. This will probably change at some point in the future but I don't think it will happen until a long time from now.

About taxation of your Canadian pension income;

OK this is where it gets more complicated.

The federal government can decide you are a "non-resident of Canada" for tax purposes. If it does this, it will apply a minimum, flat, 25% withholding tax on all your Canadian-source income, including your Canada Pension Plan payments (equivalent to U.S. Social Security).

If your income is high enough, you may end up paying more than 25%, but not less. But hold on -- if you pay income tax to the Nicaraguan government, you can deduct this amount from Canadian taxable income, which might in your case mean you end up paying no more than 25% (but not less).

Does the fact that you have become an official resident of Nicaragua mean that the federal government can decide you are a "non-resident of Canada" for tax purposes? No, not for that reason alone, and not now.

tte federal government can't just snap its fingers and decide that you are a non-resident of Canada for tax purposes no matter how long live in Nicaragua. It all depends on where you live in Nicaragua.

As a very general rule of thumb, if you buy a home in Nicaragua and live in it for most of the year, or if you rent homes in Nicaragua, then the government can decide that you are a non-resident. But if you stay in hotels or friends put you up without charging you rent, then the government cannot do so.

So the issue becomes this: How would the Government of Canada find out whether you buy or rent a home in Nicaragua? For practical purpose, the GoC could only prove this if Canada's consulate in Nicaragua decides to target you for an investigation and the Nicaraguan Government actively co-operates.

Note that this stuff applies only to Nicaragua and a handful of other countries in the world. Also, Canada's rules may change you before you reach retirement.

Taxation issues are so complicated that you really should speak to a Canadian accountant with experience in cross-border tax issues. Everything is case-by-case.

your limit is whatever is stamped on one of the last pages of your passport. It should be 5 years unless you goofed and got a shorter time. If you have a cedula you are not a tourist and do not pay the usd 10 entrance fee at the airport.

Your friend needs to stop by ther nearest migracion office before his 89 days are up. It`s no big deal, just be aware his passport will be in Managua for a while (something like 2 days plus weekends plus holidays plus hangover/catchup days).

``The government is clearly Marxist. The question is whether it is Karl or Groucho``

every 90 days? Cheaper to go to Costa rica every 90 days?

"Maybe, just once, someone will call me 'sir' without adding, 'you're making a scene." -Homer J. Simpson