u/Cultural_Fennel3168

My wife is moving from Asia to Canada, and I’ll likely join her from the U.S. soon. We need to buy a car, but she has no Canadian/U.S. credit history while I have excellent U.S. credit.

I’m trying to figure out whether it makes more sense to:

• buy the car in the U.S. under my credit and drive/import it into Canada, or
• buy/finance it directly in Canada.

I suspect buying in the U.S. may be better because:

• I can likely get promotional financing (0–4% APR),
• I’m more comfortable negotiating with U.S. dealers,
• most goods in the U.S. market seems to have cheaper prices and more inventory.

But I’m concerned those savings could be offset by import fees, taxes, fees to transfer title to her, registration, insurance, or other cross-border complications.

The drive itself is irrelevant since I’ll already be driving there anyway. I’m mainly looking for insight into which option is likely to be cheaper and simpler overall.

P.S. From the comments, I now see the issue with a financed car crossing the border. OK, how about if I paid in cash? Even cash deals are probably better in the US.

Hi. I have an ~$81K capital loss carryover (~$21K short-term, ~$60K long-term) and am trying to figure out the best way to use it. My earned income is about $150K/year, and so far I’ve only been using the standard $3K/year deduction against ordinary income.

My concern is that at this pace it will take ~27 years to fully use the carryover, and I may not even stay in the U.S. that long. There’s a decent chance (maybe 2 out of 3) that I move from the U.S. to Canada within 2–3 years, likely with somewhat lower income there. I’ll probably need $50K–$100K cash for relocation, car, possible home down payment, etc.

Right now I have:

• ~$200K in retirement accounts (late 30s)
• ~$50K in a taxable brokerage account, with mostly short-term gains

Since most of my savings are locked in retirement accounts, I may eventually need to liquidate part of the taxable account to fund the move. Ideally I’d like to use the carryover losses to offset those gains if that makes sense.

The main decision I’m struggling with is this:

Over the next 2–3 years, I can either:

• invest about $4K/month into taxable accounts, OR
• defer about $5K/month pre-tax into my 403(b)/457(b)

I can contribute up to ~$49K/year combined to those retirement accounts, and I expect I’ll probably return to the U.S. eventually and retire here. Because of that, I’m hesitant to miss out on tax-advantaged contributions while I still can. But I also value flexibility, especially since there’s a chance I eventually retire early outside the U.S. in a lower-cost country.

So I’m trying to understand:

• Does having a large capital loss carryover make taxable investing more attractive?
• Or is it still usually better to maximize pre-tax retirement contributions and slowly use the losses against ordinary income?

My questions:

1. How would you allocate ~$4K–$6K/month between taxable and tax-deferred investing before a possible move abroad?
2. How would you strategically use the capital loss carryover?
3. Are there any cross-border, tax, liquidity, or early-retirement issues I may be overlooking?

Happy to clarify anything if helpful.