The U.S.-resident estate of a U.S.-resident individual who died holding real estate in Canada and did not have a social insurance number (“SIN”) will realize a gain on the disposition of the property. Can a non-resident estate be a graduated-rate estate (“GRE”) and, if so, what would CRA consider as “such other information as is acceptable” in meeting the requirement in para. (c) of the GRE definition?
CRA indicated that the GRE definition does not require an estate to be resident in Canada, nor that the deceased have been resident in Canada before death. Instead, the requirement in para. (c) is to provide the SIN of the deceased, or other acceptable information, allowing CRA to ensure that only one graduated rate estate designation is made for each deceased individual.
In this situation, if the deceased did not have a SIN, the estate could provide a temporary tax number or an individual tax number.