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.
This is the point most filings get wrong. What separates a good outcome here from an ordinary one is rarely the arithmetic. It is knowing that a specific rule exists for case studies hub and being able to evidence that it applies.
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.
If any of that sounds familiar, it is because it is the standard experience of anyone in this position. The rules were not written to be read together, and nobody is given a map. See also what is in a written quote.
It is easier to see with numbers attached.
Take C$89,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 24% on it and the home country would charge 35% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$89,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 24%) | C$21,360 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 35%) | C$31,150 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$21,360 |
| Home tax still payable | C$9,790 |
The credit absorbs C$21,360 and leaves C$9,790 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. That is an illustration of the mechanism, not a prediction about your file — the same computation on your figures is the first thing we do.
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.
Numbers make this concrete, so here is the same rule applied to a set of figures.
Take C$82,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 21% on it and the home country would charge 42% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$82,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 21%) | C$17,220 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 42%) | C$34,440 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$17,220 |
| Home tax still payable | C$17,220 |
The credit absorbs C$17,220 and leaves C$17,220 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.
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.
Whatever you have is enough to start the conversation, including nothing but the dates.
Reviewed for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, International Tax, Cross-Border Tax & Transfer Pricing Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. Published as general information. For a position on your own file, call the 24-hour helpline.
If you came here for international tax accountant, this is where it is dealt with. The subject is case studies hub, and the page covers who it reaches, what then has to be filed, and what we charge to do the work.
The client had left Canada partway through a year and filed nothing for it, on the understanding that leaving ended the obligation. Work began with residence: the date the ties were actually severed, evidenced by what the documents showed rather than by the date on the ticket. The return for the year of departure was then built around that date, with the deemed disposition and the property schedule prepared to match it. The engagement produced a departure position set out in writing, a filed return for the year in question, and a record of the valuations relied on, kept in case they are later questioned.
A dual filer held accounts abroad that had been reported on neither side, which surfaced when a bank asked for a tax residence declaration. The first question was not the balances but the ownership, since a joint account, an account held through a company and an account a parent had opened are three different reporting questions. Each account was traced to its actual holder, then the Canadian foreign property reporting and the FBAR were prepared together so that the two countries' records told one story. The engagement produced completed foreign asset reporting for the years involved and a schedule showing how every balance was derived.
A client had paid tax in one country on income the other country also taxed, and the return as first prepared claimed no credit for it. The obstacle was evidence rather than entitlement. The foreign assessment had not been issued when the return was filed, so the amount was still provisional and nothing supported a claim. The foreign filing was completed first, the final figure obtained, and the earlier return amended to claim the credit against the income it belonged to. The engagement produced an amended return, a credit supported by the foreign assessment, and a note of the conversion basis used.
The client was treated as resident by two countries at once, each applying its own domestic test, and had been advised simply to pick one. The work was evidential. A permanent home in each place, the centre of vital interests, where the client habitually stayed: each limb was answered from documents that existed at the time, including leases, school records, bank activity and travel history. The engagement produced a written residence position supported by that file of evidence, filings consistent with it in both countries, and a record that can be produced if either authority asks for it.
A company had been charging a related entity abroad for management services on a figure nobody could explain, and no documentation existed. The work started from what the entities actually did for one another, because a price cannot be defended before the functions are described. Functions, assets and risks were set out on each side, the basis for the charge was chosen to fit them, and the arrangement was documented as it stood rather than reconstructed afterwards. The engagement produced a written transfer pricing file, an intercompany agreement matching what that file describes, and a charge the company can explain.
The client wanted a credit claimed for tax withheld abroad, and on the face of it the position looked straightforward. Reading the documents changed it. The amount withheld had been applied to a gross payment rather than to the income the other country was entitled to tax, so part of it was recoverable at source rather than creditable here. The claim was withdrawn before filing and a refund claim was made in the source country instead. The engagement produced a return carrying no unsupportable position, and a separate claim made in the right place, which is the slower route and the correct one.
Interest on each is treated differently and the deduction at source follows the account rather than the person. Holding the wrong one for the purpose is a recurring and avoidable cost.
Read how this one runsResidence is decided on ties, not on a form, and the review asks for evidence of every one of them. The file assembles the ties that were severed and the ones that remained, and answers the questionnaire against the treaty rather than around it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It starts with facts rather than structures: which countries have a claim on you, what each one taxes, and where the two overlap. From there the decisions are about order and timing — which country taxes first, where relief is claimed, and whether a filing or a certificate has to be in place before money moves rather than after. Most of the value is in the sequencing, because relief claimed late is usually relief recovered slowly. See international tax planning.
Missed years are handled as one package, not one at a time, because the route chosen for the first year determines the relief available for the rest. Each country has a disclosure or relief programme with its own conditions, and entering the right one — before the authority contacts you — is usually what keeps penalties down. Filing quietly outside a programme forfeits that protection. See catching up on missed returns.
Where our partners studied — CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), AICPA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
