Finished cross-border files, published with what came in, what was filed and what it cost — so you can judge us before you call.
The claims on this site are deliberately few: fixed fees agreed in writing before work starts, 15+ years of cross-border experience, 18,000+ clients served across 4 global offices, a 5.0/5 Google rating, and a helpline that answers 24 hours a day.
Further down: how we work, what clients ask before engaging us, two completed files with figures, the way the work runs, and where the fee is published.
The claims on this site are deliberately few: fixed fees agreed in writing before work starts, 15+ years of cross-border experience, 18,000+ clients served across 4 global offices, a 5.0/5 Google rating, and a helpline that answers 24 hours a day. Anything that cannot be evidenced does not go on a page.
One question decides the rest of the file. The difference between the two outcomes is a provision most people in this position have never heard of — and once it is identified, the rest of the file is straightforward.
Every firm says the same things — I want to see the actual outcome.
I want to know what a file like mine looked like when it was finished.
I need to see that someone has handled my exact combination of countries.
These are not edge cases. They are what happens when two systems each apply their own logic to one person, and the person is expected to reconcile the result. See also rush work and late filings — how we price them.
Here is the rule doing its work on an actual set of amounts.
Take C$67,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 22% on it and the home country would charge 32% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$67,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 22%) | C$14,740 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 32%) | C$21,440 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$14,740 |
| Home tax still payable | C$6,700 |
The credit absorbs C$14,740 and leaves C$6,700 payable at home, because the home rate on this income is the higher of the two. The balance is real cash and it is due on the home timetable, which is why instalments get raised in the first meeting. Change any one of those inputs and the answer moves, which is why we run it on your own figures rather than on an illustration.
Example figures throughout, selected to make the rule visible, with rates and thresholds assumed for the demonstration. Your actual filing uses figures confirmed with the issuing authority for your tax year.
The same point, with figures rather than adjectives.
Take C$86,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 25% on it and the home country would charge 29% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$86,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 25%) | C$21,500 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 29%) | C$24,940 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$21,500 |
| Home tax still payable | C$3,440 |
The credit absorbs C$21,500 and leaves C$3,440 payable at home, because the home rate on this income is the higher of the two. The balance is real cash and it is due on the home timetable, which is why instalments get raised in the first meeting. Change any one of those inputs and the answer moves, which is why we run it on your own figures rather than on an illustration.
Example figures throughout, selected to make the rule visible, with rates and thresholds assumed for the demonstration. Your actual filing uses figures confirmed with the issuing authority for your tax year.
If you already have an adviser, we will tell you what they should be asking rather than replacing them.
Checked and signed off for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. General information, not advice for your circumstances — call our 24-hour helpline to discuss your own position.
Read this page for international tax accountant. It works through contact us from the beginning — whether it applies to you at all, what has to be filed if it does, and what the engagement costs, priced up front.
A caller wanted a filing position that the documents did not support. We read what he had, set out what the authority would ask to see, and said plainly that the claim could not be defended on that evidence. The work consisted of a reading of his papers and a written note describing what would have had to exist for the position to stand. No engagement was opened. The note is what the conversation produced: he knows where the weakness is, and can decide whether the record can be built or the claim abandoned.
The first call described a straightforward pair of returns. The next, once the caller had gone through his papers, added a rental property in another country and years nobody had mentioned. Rather than absorb that quietly, the scope was rewritten and re-quoted in writing before any preparation began. The engagement produced a written scope naming every year and every country in it, and a fee fixed against that scope. The point was not diligence for its own sake. A return built on the first description would have had to be amended later, at his cost.
The caller led with the catch-up he wanted and mentioned, near the end, a letter demanding a return. That letter changed everything about the sequence. The demanded year was prepared and filed first, on its own scope and its own fee, while the remaining years were listed and quoted separately. What the engagement produced was a filed return answering the demand, and a written plan for the rest that did not depend on it. Had the years been prepared in date order, as he had assumed they would be, the demand would have been answered last.
The caller had an open-ended hourly estimate from elsewhere and no way of judging it. We took the work apart along the lines that actually drive it: countries, years, and whether each return was a preparation or a reconstruction. Once described that way the file could be priced as a whole. What the engagement produced was a written scope listing each component and a single fee covering all of it, agreed before work started. He was not being overcharged before. He simply had no way to tell, which is the real problem with an hourly quote on cross-border work.
A daughter got in touch about her father's returns. Before anything could be scoped we had to settle who the client was, who could give instructions, and who was entitled to receive information about the file. That is not a formality; it decides who signs, who the authority will speak to, and what can be discussed on a call. The engagement produced a written record of that authority before any document was requested. Families often find this the slowest part of opening a file, and it is the part that causes the most trouble when it is skipped.
A director enquired about the company and his personal position together, assuming a single engagement. They were scoped separately, because the corporate work depended on records that had not been reconciled and the personal return did not. Splitting them meant the personal filing went ahead on its own timetable instead of waiting behind the bookkeeping. Each had its own written scope and its own fixed fee. The engagement produced a filed personal return and a corporate scope that began where the reconciliation ended, rather than a single file held up by its slowest part.
US shares and US real estate sit inside the US estate tax net regardless of where the owner lives. The treaty provides relief that is proportionate rather than automatic, and the calculation depends on the worldwide estate.
Read how this one runsElecting to treat a non-resident spouse as a US filer buys joint rates and brings that spouse's worldwide income and foreign accounts into the return. The election is easy to make and hard to revoke, so both positions are modelled first.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.
Foreign property income and sales are taxed in both countries by default; Section 216, FIRPTA and treaty credits are the standing toolkit.
Property is taxed where it sits, which is the one rule no treaty overrides. What the treaty does decide is the credit, the rate on the rent and what happens on the sale — and the clearance certificate on a disposition is applied for before closing, not after the buyer has already held the money back.
On the first call we establish the scope — countries, years, entities, filings — and quote a fixed fee for it in writing. If the scope changes we re-quote before continuing, and nothing is filed until you have approved it.
That is how most of these engagements run. They keep the domestic file, we take the cross-border piece, and the boundary is agreed in writing so nothing is done twice or missed.
A few things make the first conversation useful. Which countries you have been resident in, and roughly when each period started and ended. Which countries the income comes from, and what kind of income it is. Which years, in each country, are already filed and which are not. And any letter you have received from a tax authority, because the date on it usually decides the order of the work. You do not need the documents themselves at that stage. You need to be able to describe the shape of the position accurately, because that is what the scope and the fixed fee are built from. Call +1 (416) 619-0068.
Yes, once the scope is clear. The fee is set by what the work contains — how many years, how many countries, whether a return has to be rebuilt rather than prepared — not by the hours it takes. So the first conversation is mostly about establishing those boundaries. The fee is then agreed in writing before any work starts and it does not move. If something turns up that sits outside the agreed scope, a missing year, a second country, an entity nobody mentioned, the work stops and the extra is quoted in writing before it goes ahead. You are never told the number afterwards.
The first conversation is diagnostic. We are trying to work out which rules govern your position, because that decides everything downstream — which returns are required, in which order, and what has to be settled before anything can be prepared. Residence usually has to be established first. Then the outstanding years are listed, country by country. Then the scope is written down and priced. Only after you have agreed that in writing does document collection begin. Files that go wrong almost always went wrong here, by starting the return before the question of which rules apply was answered.
One named adviser is answerable for the file, and that person is the one who scoped it. Preparation may be done by someone else, and a return is read by a reviewer before it is signed, but the person who agreed the scope with you does not hand the file on and disappear. This matters more on cross-border work than on a single-country return, because the decisions taken at scoping — residence, which country taxes first, which years go in and in what order — are carried through the whole engagement and have to be defended by whoever made them.
Tell us. It is covered by the confidence you would expect of any adviser, and more practically, a scope built on a partial account is a scope that will have to be redone. Unfiled years, an account in a country you have not mentioned, a company you own a share of — each of those changes which rules apply, not merely how long the work takes. People understate the position at first contact because they are bracing for a lecture. You will not get one. What you will get is an accurate view of what has to be filed and what it will cost.
Say so at the start of the conversation, and read out the date and what the letter asks for. A demand to file, a request for documents and a proposal to assess are three different things, and they set different orders of work. Where a date is running, the sequence changes: the immediate response is prepared first and the wider catch-up is scoped around it, rather than the other way round. Bring the letter to the conversation rather than describing it from memory, because the wording of what is being asked for is usually what determines the answer.
It is an agreement between two countries that divides up the right to tax. Article by article it decides which country taxes employment income, dividends, interest, royalties, pensions, property and business profits — and where both may tax, it caps what the source country can withhold and tells the other to give credit. It also breaks residence ties and opens a government-to-government channel for disputes. What it never does is apply itself: a treaty position is claimed. See our treaty work.
A branch keeps one taxpayer: results consolidate at home, losses are usable sooner, and the exposure is that the branch is a permanent establishment whose profit the host country taxes, sometimes with a branch tax on repatriation. A subsidiary is a separate taxpayer with limited liability and local rates, at the cost of withholding on dividends home and transfer pricing on everything between them. The deciding facts are usually expected losses, liability and exit plans. See branch against subsidiary.
Where our partners studied — CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), AICPA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
