How is the fee actually set?
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.
Can you work with my existing accountant?
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.
How do I know a firm's published case studies are real?
Ask what the study actually reports. A real file names the position taken, what was filed and the order the work ran in, because those are things the preparer had to decide. A written-up marketing story reports a feeling instead. Nothing published here identifies a client, so the check you can make is internal: does the mechanism described match what the rule requires, and does the outcome follow from it? If a study says a result was achieved but never says on what basis, treat it as advertising. You are also welcome to ring and ask how a published file was handled. +1 (416) 619-0068.
Will my result match the case study that looks like mine?
Probably not exactly, and any firm that promises otherwise is selling. Two files that look alike from the outside, with the same country pair and the same income type, can turn on a different residence date, a different treaty article, or a document one client kept and the other did not. What a study is useful for is narrower and more honest: it shows which questions had to be answered before anything could be filed. Read it for the order of work rather than the outcome. If you can see your own facts among the ones that mattered, the study is telling you something. If you cannot, ring and describe them.
Why do case studies never name the client or the company?
Because a tax file is confidential and naming the client would breach that, however flattering the story. It also does not help you. A company name tells you nothing about whether the adviser identified the right provision; the description of the work does. So the studies here carry the situation, the technical question, what was filed and what the engagement produced, and leave out anything that would identify a person. Where a figure would identify a file, or imply a result you should expect on your own facts, it is left out as well.
What should a cross-border case study tell me before I call?
Four things. What the client arrived with, including the mess: missing years, a letter already received, records kept in two currencies. Which rule governed, and why that one rather than the default. What was actually filed or submitted, and in what order. And what the engagement produced, whether that is a documented position, a set of years brought up to date, or a withholding recovered. If a study skips the second of those, it is describing data entry rather than advice. The point of publishing them is that you can judge the reasoning before you pay for it.
Can I see a file like mine before I hire an accountant?
That is what this hub is for. The files are grouped by the thing that actually varies, which is foreign asset reporting, treaty positions, departure from Canada, credits for tax paid abroad and transfer pricing, rather than by the client's industry. The industry rarely changes the answer and the residence position always does. Start from the study that matches your facts, not your job title. If nothing matches, that is worth knowing too: it usually means your facts turn on something not yet published here, and it is a short conversation to find out which.
Do you publish the files that did not go well?
Files where the answer was not the one the client wanted sit here on the same terms as the rest, because they are usually the more instructive ones. A disclosure that could not be made voluntarily because the authority had already written. A credit that could not be claimed because the foreign tax was not yet final. A treaty position that did not survive its own documents. Writing those up is uncomfortable, and it is the reason a hub like this is worth reading at all. What is not published is any file where the client could be identified from the circumstances, however useful the lesson.
Is "fund transfer pricing" the same thing as transfer pricing?
No — and if you came here to calculate FTP, this is not it. Fund transfer pricing is a bank's internal allocation of funding costs and benefits between its own business units, a treasury and asset-liability management discipline used to measure branch or product profitability. Tax transfer pricing is about prices between legally separate related parties across borders, and about which country taxes the resulting profit. The words overlap; the fields do not. See our transfer pricing work.
Can an accountant in one country file my return in another?
Yes, where they are authorised to represent you with that tax authority and the filing is done electronically. What matters is not where the adviser sits but whether they can lawfully act for you and are competent in both systems — a return prepared with no knowledge of the other country is where the relief gets missed. We file on both sides, from offices in India, the USA, Canada and the UAE. See how we work.