How long before I move should I start tax planning?
Earlier than most people expect, because the useful steps all have to complete before residency begins. Selling an asset, collapsing a structure or reorganising a holding takes weeks of paperwork from the other side, and once you are resident the same step is a taxable event in the new system rather than a neutral one. The practical sequence is to fix the arrival date last: list what you own and what you control, decide what has to change, and let the date follow the work rather than the other way round. If the date is already fixed, the list gets shorter but it is rarely empty.
Can I sell my shares before I move to avoid tax?
A disposal completed while you are still outside the destination system is taxed, if at all, by the country you are in at the time, not by the one you are moving to. That is the whole of the advantage, and it is why the timing question matters more than the amount. Two cautions. The sale has to be real and complete, with a contract and a settlement date, not an intention recorded before departure. And the tax cost in the country you are leaving may be higher than the exposure you are avoiding, so the comparison has to be run both ways before anything is signed.
Does my arrival date change how much tax I pay?
Yes, and it is one of the few variables genuinely in your hands. The date decides which side of the line each event falls on: a gain realised before it is outside the new system, the same gain realised after it is inside. It also sets the value at which most of what you keep enters the new country, because the cost base of property held at arrival is generally taken as its value on that day. So a date chosen around school terms or the end of a lease can carry a tax consequence nobody priced. Choose it once the transactions around it are mapped.
Should I close my overseas company before immigrating?
Not automatically, but it should be examined. A company that was straightforward where you lived can be an expensive thing to own as a resident of somewhere else: the new country may look through it, attribute its income to you, or ask for annual reporting on holdings you had never had to declare. Simplifying is far cheaper before arrival, when winding up or distributing is a transaction in the old system, than afterwards, when the same step is a taxable event under rules you have just become subject to. The test is whether the structure still does a job once you are resident.
Is it too late to plan if I have already landed?
The cheapest options have closed, but not all of them. What remains is mostly accuracy rather than choice: establishing the date residency actually began, fixing the value of what you brought with you so later gains are measured from the right starting point, identifying the reporting the new country expects on foreign holdings, and dealing with anything already filed on the wrong basis. That work is worth doing promptly, because evidence of arrival-day values gets harder to obtain with every year that passes. Planning after the fact is narrower and more expensive, which is exactly why the window before arrival matters.
Does my visa approval date start the tax clock?
Usually not, but you cannot assume it. Immigration approval and tax residency are separate events on separate calendars. The first is a decision by a department; the second generally turns on when you actually arrive and begin to live there, and in some systems on the status itself rather than on your presence. That gap is the planning window, and it is often months wide. Confirm which test the destination applies before you rely on it, because a plan built on the approval date when the rule looks at arrival, or the reverse, puts every transaction on the wrong side of the line.
Do I have to file in both countries?
Frequently yes, and the two filings do different jobs. The country where the income arises taxes it at source; the country where you are resident taxes your worldwide income and then gives credit for the tax already paid. Filing only one side is what leaves relief unclaimed — the credit has to be asked for on a return. We prepare both sides so the numbers agree. See dual filing.
What is double tax relief and how is it given?
Three mechanisms, and which one you get depends on your residence country's law and the treaty. Exemption leaves the foreign income out of the residence-country base. Credit taxes it and then subtracts the foreign tax, capped at the residence-country tax on that income. Deduction merely reduces taxable income by the foreign tax, and is usually the weakest. Canada and the United States lead with credit; several treaties give exemption for specific income types. See claiming the credit.
