Mika Goodfriend is a photographer from Montreal who recently spent five weeks documenting the Québécois snowbirds of Breezy Hill RV Resort in Pampano Beach, Florida. According to the article, these Canadians spend six months out of each year down south – a lifestyle that both embarrasses and is financially out of reach of their children – and they make up 98% of the residents of this particular RV park.
Two things leap out in this article.
The first is the amount of time in the United States these snowbirds are spending. Six months per year will quickly add up and put a non-American over the limit that automatically renders them US Persons for tax purposes in the eyes of Uncle Sam and the IRS.
The second thing, which I found more significant still, is that Goodfriend notes how the lifestyle of these retirees is dependent on the wealth they accumulated during their working years and the at pensions their jobs afforded them. They are extremely well off in a way the current generation of young Canadian workers are likely never to be.
Which makes me wonder, who is going to inherit all this wealth? The children and grandchildren of the Québécois of Pampano Beach or the United States government, which has very complex and far-reaching tax and estate tax laws designed to ensnare people like snowbirds who overwinter in places like Florida.
