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.
Below: how the practice runs, what clients ask first, two worked files with their numbers, the process end to end, and the published fee.
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.
Start with the mechanism, not the form. That is the practical value of a specialist here: not better arithmetic, but knowing which of several possible rules governs filing many late years at once before the return is built on the wrong one.
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.
None of those is unusual and none of them is a reason to be embarrassed. They are the normal consequence of a system that asks an individual to reconcile two sets of rules that were never designed to fit together. See also what moves an engagement up a fee tier.
This is what the rule produces when you put figures through it.
Take C$166,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 19% on it and the home country would charge 30% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$166,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 19%) | C$31,540 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 30%) | C$49,800 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$31,540 |
| Home tax still payable | C$18,260 |
The credit absorbs C$31,540 and leaves C$18,260 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.
An illustration, not a client file. The sums are chosen for legibility and the thresholds are stated for the example alone — nothing reaches a filing until it has been confirmed at source for your own year.
Numbers make this concrete, so here is the same rule applied to a set of figures.
Take C$106,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 19% on it and the home country would charge 42% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$106,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 19%) | C$20,140 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 42%) | C$44,520 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$20,140 |
| Home tax still payable | C$24,380 |
The credit absorbs C$20,140 and leaves C$24,380 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. We run this on your actual numbers before advising anything, because the conclusion can invert with a modest change in inputs.
Treat these numbers as a worked example rather than advice — they exist to make the mechanics visible, and the rates and thresholds are assumed for the illustration. For a real filing, we verify each figure with the authority that publishes it, for your year.
If a letter prompted this, bring the letter — it usually contains the answer to half the questions.
Reviewed 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.
The subject here is filing many late years at once, which is what people mean when they search for international tax accountant. This page covers who it applies to, the filings it produces, and the fixed fee agreed before work begins.
The client wanted the most recent year filed first, to stop the immediate problem. It could not be done that way. The opening position for that year — unused losses and credits — was determined by years that had never been prepared, so the figure it needed did not yet exist. The work ran from the earliest year forward, each one establishing the opening position of the next, and the set was filed together. What the engagement produced was a continuous set of returns whose carry-forwards reconcile year to year, which is what makes the most recent one defensible.
The earliest years had no documents at all. Most of the income had been reported to the authority by third parties, and that record was obtained and used as the spine of each return. Bank statements supplied the rest of the picture, and the gaps that remained were written up as what they were rather than guessed at. The engagement produced filed returns with a schedule setting out the source of every figure and the basis of each estimate. A reconstruction that documents its own method is defensible. One that presents estimates as records is not.
The catch-up was half prepared when a demand to file a specific year arrived. Work on the sequence stopped. That year was completed on its own and filed against the demand, even though it meant taking an opening position the earlier years had not yet confirmed and revisiting it afterwards. The engagement produced a return answering the demand within its own timetable, and the remaining years filed behind it. Continuing in date order and answering the demand when the sequence reached it would have been tidier and wrong.
The client had moved between countries more than once in the period and had assumed the returns simply followed his address. They did not. Which country could tax each year, and whether a return was owed at all, depended on a residence determination for each period, made on the facts of where he actually lived and what he kept. That determination was made and documented first. The engagement produced a written residence chronology and a set of returns filed on it. Without the chronology the returns would have been prepared, plausibly, under the wrong country's rules.
The client had kept up with one country's returns and filed nothing in the other for the same period. The unfiled side could not be prepared in isolation, because the positions already taken on the filed side constrained it: relief claimed there depended on what was reported here. The work consisted of reading the filed years first, then preparing the missing ones consistently with them and identifying where the earlier filings would need amending. What it produced was a single consistent account across both countries, rather than a version in each that could not both be true.
The estate could not be settled while years remained outstanding, and the executor had no knowledge of the deceased's affairs beyond what was in the house. The work began with establishing what the authority already held, then reconstructing the remainder from bank records, and finally determining which years were genuinely required. The engagement produced the outstanding returns filed and a written account of the basis for each, which the executor needed in order to distribute without personal exposure. Executors work under a different pressure from a living client, and the order of work reflects it.
Where the treaty rate is lower than what was deducted, the difference comes back through a return rather than at source. The file establishes entitlement and files for the years still open.
Read how this one runsWhere the income was on the return and only the account report was missed, a narrow route allows late filing with a reason attached. It is open only while no income is unreported and no examination has begun, which is why it is checked 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.
Performance income is taxed where earned — Regulation 105 in Canada, withholding agreements in the U.S. — with special treaty articles overriding the usual rules.
Performance income is taxed where the performance happens, and the deduction is usually taken at source on the gross fee before expenses. Recovering the difference is a filing exercise in the other country, and it only works if the tour, the residency and the withholding certificates were documented while the work was being done.
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.
Not with the earliest return. Start by establishing residence for each of the years involved, because that decides which returns are required at all, and in which country. Then list what exists: which years are outstanding, in which countries, and whether any authority has already written to you. Only then is it worth collecting documents, and they are collected year by year in the order the returns will be filed. People usually begin by hunting for the oldest paperwork, which is the slowest part of the job and often the part that matters least. If a demand letter exists, it moves to the front of everything.
They are prepared in sequence and usually filed together. Sequence matters because figures carry forward: losses, unused credits, the cost base of anything held for a long time. A year prepared out of order is prepared on an opening position you have not yet established, and often has to be redone. Filing them together matters for a different reason — the account is assessed as a whole rather than as a series of surprises arriving separately. The exception is a year under demand, which is prepared first and on its own, so the demand is answered while the rest is still being built.
Missing records are normal on a long catch-up and rarely stop it. Much of what you need was reported to the authority by someone else — employers, banks, brokers — and can be obtained rather than reconstructed. Bank statements carry most of the rest. What genuinely cannot be rebuilt is anything that depended on a record made at the time, an expense log being the common example, and a claim resting on one of those will be weaker than it would have been. Reconstruction after the fact is evidence of a lower order, which does not make it worthless.
The returns are processed like any others, and interest and penalties are assessed on balances owing under the ordinary rules. What changes the handling is not whether you file but when and why: a filing volunteered before any contact sits in a different position from one produced after a demand has been issued. That is the practical argument for doing a catch-up before a letter arrives rather than after. The other thing worth knowing is that unfiled years do not become invisible with age. They remain outstanding, and the obligation does not expire on its own.
Sometimes, and the answer differs from the answer on whether you must file. The obligation to file does not lapse with time. Refunds and many credits do: they are subject to statutory limits on how far back a claim can reach, and once those have passed the money is not recoverable even though the return is still required. That asymmetry surprises people. The practical consequence is that the oldest years in a long catch-up are often filed for the sake of compliance and for the carry-forward figures they establish, not because anything comes back from them.
Usually yes, and for reasons that have nothing to do with tax owing. Entitlement to many benefits and credits is calculated from a filed return, so a nil year left unfiled can interrupt them for the years that follow. A nil year also fixes your residence position on the record for that period, which matters when the years either side are contested. And a chain of returns with a gap in it invites a question about the gap. Nil years are the quickest part of a catch-up to prepare and the most commonly left out.
Foreign income is income sourced outside the country you are filing in — where the work was done, where the property sits, where the payer is resident, depending on the type. A foreign tax, for credit purposes, is a levy imposed by another country that functions as an income tax and that you were legally required to pay. Consumption taxes, property taxes and most social contributions are not, however real the cost. Sourcing is decided by rule, not by which bank received it. See the foreign tax credit.
In this order. Fix your residence under each country's own rules, and if both claim you, apply the treaty tie-breaker. Identify where each type of income is sourced. Read the article that covers that income type, because it decides who taxes and at what maximum rate. Then claim the relief on the residence-country return, with proof of the foreign tax. Most of the tax people lose to double taxation is lost at the last step, not the first. See how double taxation is relieved.
Where our partners studied — CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), AICPA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
