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.
Everything else on this page follows from this. What separates a good outcome here from an ordinary one is rarely the arithmetic. It is knowing that a specific rule exists for why clients leave their last accountant 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.
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 why fixed fees, not hourly rates.
It is easier to see with numbers attached.
Take C$152,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 27% on it and the home country would charge 43% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$152,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 27%) | C$41,040 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 43%) | C$65,360 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$41,040 |
| Home tax still payable | C$24,320 |
The credit absorbs C$41,040 and leaves C$24,320 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.
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.
Here is the rule doing its work on an actual set of amounts.
Take C$70,000 of income taxed in both countries. Assume the other country charged 30% on it and the home country would charge 32% on the same amount.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Income taxed in both countries | C$70,000 |
| Tax paid abroad (assumed 30%) | C$21,000 |
| Home tax on the same income (assumed 32%) | C$22,400 |
| Credit available (lesser of the two) | C$21,000 |
| Home tax still payable | C$1,400 |
The credit absorbs C$21,000 and leaves C$1,400 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. The shape of that result holds; the size of it depends entirely on your own numbers and dates.
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.
We would rather scope it properly than quote it quickly.
Read and approved for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. This is general information rather than advice about your file — a short call is the way to get the second.
Read this page for international tax accountant. It works through why clients leave their last accountant 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 couple came to us during filing season with one country’s return half prepared and the other not started, after their previous preparer stopped replying. We asked for the source documents rather than the draft, rebuilt the carry-forward schedules from statements, and established which years were genuinely outstanding on each side. Both returns were then prepared together from one set of figures, so the income and the cost bases described in each matched. The engagement produced a filed pair of returns for the year and a written carry-forward schedule the client can hand to anyone.
A client wanted us to take over the file but keep the treaty position the previous firm had taken, on the ground that it had never been questioned. We read the earlier returns and the papers that came with them, set out what the position assumed about the facts, and tested those assumptions against what the client had actually been doing in the years concerned. Two of them no longer held. The engagement produced a written analysis of the position, a recommendation to change it going forward, and a note of what needed correcting in the open years first.
An investor’s file arrived with filed returns but no working papers, and those returns depended on elections made years earlier that nobody could produce. We requested the account records from the tax authorities, retrieved what had been filed, and reconstructed the remainder from purchase and bank documents the client still held. Where an election could not be evidenced we said so rather than assuming it had been made. The engagement produced a documented election history, a corrected cost base for the properties concerned, and a clear statement of which figures were verified and which were rebuilt.
A professional had filed diligently where they lived and had never filed in their country of citizenship, on advice they had come to doubt. The first stage was not preparation. We established which years were genuinely outstanding, what information the second authority already held, and which coming-forward route the facts supported. Only then were the returns and information forms prepared, in the order that route required. The engagement produced a completed disclosure covering the outstanding years and a filing calendar the client has followed since without needing to ask.
A small company had a preparer in each country, and each assumed the other was dealing with the intercompany charges. Neither set of accounts reconciled to the other. We took both files, agreed one set of figures for the intercompany balances, and documented the basis on which the charges were made before either return was amended. The engagement produced reconciled accounts, a written note supporting the charge, and one point of responsibility for both countries’ filings so the same gap could not reopen at the next year end.
A client had left a previous firm because the fee moved repeatedly during an engagement, and asked what ours would be before sending anything at all. So we scoped first: a short review of the last filed returns for each country and a list of what appeared outstanding. That produced a defined list of returns, forms and years, which was quoted as a fixed fee in writing before any preparation began. Anything outside the list was quoted separately as it arose. The engagement produced the agreed filings and no invoice the client had not seen in advance.
The two countries classify the vehicle differently, so relief that ought to apply frequently does not and the same profit can be taxed in both hands. The engagement examines whether the structure can be changed and what the change itself costs.
Read how this one runsA dependent agent habitually concluding contracts can create a permanent establishment where there is no premises at all. The review tests what the person actually does against what the treaty describes.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.
Related-party purchasing, customs value versus transfer price, and foreign-affiliate structures put trading businesses inside the s.247 documentation rules.
Goods crossing a border move the tax question from income to indirect: registration thresholds, place of supply, the customs value and the transfer price between related entities all have to agree with each other. When they do not, the adjustment arrives from two authorities at once and each one uses the other's number.
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 the outgoing firm for the source documents and the filed returns for each country, not a summary. What matters most in a cross-border file is the carry-forward detail: cost bases, undepreciated balances, losses and credits carried forward, and elections already made. Those usually live in working papers rather than on the return, and they are what the next year depends on. We write to the previous preparer with a specific list, reconstruct from your own records anything that does not come back, and then tell you in writing which figures we were able to verify and which we had to rebuild before anything is filed.
Your own records are yours: source documents, statements, slips and correspondence with the tax authorities. Working papers prepared by the firm generally are not, although most will release the schedules a successor needs. The practical list is the filed returns for each country for the open years, the assessment and reassessment notices, any authorisations still in place, the carry-forward schedules and copies of every election filed. Ask for the elections specifically. They are the item most often left behind, and an election made in an earlier year quietly governs how the current one has to be reported.
That is the most common reason a file arrives here. A preparer who is competent on one side treats the other country as somebody else’s problem, and nobody is checking whether the two returns describe the same income on the same basis. The first job is not preparation. It is establishing which years are genuinely outstanding on each side, and whether the returns already filed took positions that the other country’s return contradicts. Until that is mapped there is little point preparing anything new, because a fresh return built on an inconsistent earlier year inherits the inconsistency.
Lateness is an argument for moving sooner rather than later. An overdue return does not improve while a preparer who is avoiding it holds the file, and the routes for coming forward voluntarily tend to narrow once a tax authority has written to you. What changes with a new preparer is sequencing: establishing the whole picture across both countries first, deciding the order the years are filed in, and choosing the disclosure route before anything is submitted. Filing one late year on its own can close off the route that would have covered all of them together.
Usually because the engagement was priced before anyone knew what was in the file. Cross-border work has a wide spread. The same job is an afternoon or a fortnight depending on how many years are open, how many accounts there are, and whether the earlier positions can be relied on. Our answer is to scope first and price afterwards. You get a fixed fee agreed in writing before work starts, covering a defined list of returns and forms for defined years. Where something genuinely new surfaces it is quoted as its own piece of work before it is done, not added at the end.
Yes, and it is often the cheaper order of events. A review of the last filed years is a defined piece of work. We read the returns for each country side by side, check that the same income and the same cost bases are described consistently, and identify any form the facts appear to require that the file does not contain. You then have something concrete, a written note of what we would do differently and why, to take back to your existing accountant or to act on. Nobody has to change firms for that to be useful. The number is +1 (416) 619-0068.
Usually the country you are physically in, because employment income is generally sourced where the work is done, with your residence country taxing it as well if you are resident there and giving credit. Three things follow: your employer may acquire withholding and social security obligations where you sit, a treaty tie-breaker may be needed if both countries call you resident, and a short trip that becomes a long stay can cross a residence threshold nobody was watching. See remote workers and digital nomads.
Around sixty, including Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Australia and most of western Europe — but the list matters less than the terms, because each treaty caps rates and allocates income differently. Two countries with treaties can produce opposite answers on the same pension or the same royalty. What decides your position is the specific article covering your income type. See our country guides.
Where our partners studied — CPA Canada (In-Depth Tax Program), AICPA, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Malaysian Institute of Accountants.
