I wrote a while ago about how I would love to be able to fly again and the fact that there are paramotors around here that are the answer to that problem. Not need for a formal licence, but rather just some instruction on how a para sail works and a bunch of safety stuff and you are good to go. Flying here is soooo predictable and I think would be real safe. The winds ALWAYS go down about 4 pm and stay down all night long which is ideal for these things. And you can just fly along the beach and ocean because at low altitude it would not be safe to fly above the populated part of town. Anyway, every day they come over taunting me with the peacefulness of their flights. Today they were really high, but lots of days they are almost dragging their feet in the sand on the beach. Maybe one day.
This afternoon I spent some time figuring out our health days so that we do not overstay our medicare days in Manitoba. We are allowed to be out of the province for up to 7 months each year now (up from 6 months a few years ago) so it is much easier to manage now. We can still only be in either Mexico or the USA for a total of 180 days so that is also easy when we split our trip between the two. Even though we probably will never violate any of those limits, I still like to keep track and have made a spreadsheet so that I can enter the scenario for the next year to see when we can actually leave in the fall.
The system gets a little complicated with the USA in that you can't be in the USA for more than 180 days in a calendar year, but also you can't be there for more than 180 days in any single trip even if it is in 2 calendar years. Also there is a formula for calculating the number of days you have been in the USA in the last 3 years to see if you have to file a Form 8840 which basically verifies that your place of residence is actually Canada. We have filed lots of these but never have we received any acknowledgement of its filing from the US government. Mexico on the other hand just lets you come in as many times as you want as long as you don't stay over 180 days!! Even if you do overstay, unless you got stopped and asked for your FMM paper, no one would ever know you have over stayed. In our 3 trips down here, we have never been asked and we have never turned in our FMM paper when we leave unless we fly out for some reason. Then they take your paper at the airport. Even still we play by the rules because we deem it a privilege to be able to visit these countries. You can see that I have calculated out our days and the earliest we can leave Manitoba would be Oct 5 this fall, if we arrive home on May 7 this spring. For every day we arrive home before May 7, it is one day earlier we can leave in the fall. Also you can see that non of our stays in either country come close to the 180 day limit, nor do they trigger the need for filing a Form 8840 this year. That's because we had very few days in the USA in 2020, 2021, and 2022 because we were either Covid confined or split our travels between the USA and Mexico.
About 10 pm we headed back to our wee house for the evening. It looks quite nice tucked in the spot in the back doesn't it?? Good Nite!!
Hi Lorne. My cousin goes to Phoenix every year and just found out this year that they were not being totally legal because they weren't getting some forms signed at the border. Just something else you might check into. His wife flew home for just a short time and didn't get the papers signed by the border.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like would work for the government, no wait you were quoting them. Lol. Confusion cleared up. The para sailing always looks fun until I think about looking down.
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Oh my. I was totally confused. I'm so glad we don't need to keep track of days. The most I deal with is making sure the CPA files our tax filing extensions. And this year the extension was automatic for both IRS and FTB.
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