Is a relocation allowance taxable in both countries?
It can be taxable in one, in the other, or in both, and the answer differs item by item rather than package by package. A lump sum labelled relocation is not a category either authority recognises. Each element inside it — shipment of household effects, temporary accommodation, a house-hunting trip, a settling-in amount — is tested separately under each system's own rules. The same line can be excluded from income on one side of the border and fully taxable on the other, which is how an employee ends up taxed on money the employer had believed would not be taxed. Split the package into its parts and test each part twice, once in each system, before anything runs through payroll.
Does my employer have to gross up my relocation package?
Nothing obliges an employer to gross up unless the offer letter or the mobility policy says so. The obligation is contractual rather than statutory, which is why the wording of the assignment letter matters more here than the tax rules do. What the tax rules decide is how much a gross-up costs: where a benefit is taxable in the host country, the gross-up is itself compensation, and in most systems that added amount is taxable too, so the calculation iterates. Where a policy promises the employee a net-of-tax outcome, model the package after tax in both systems before it is signed. An offer that reads well gross can be worth considerably less in hand.
Are school fees paid by my employer a taxable benefit?
Frequently yes on at least one side, and school fees are the item most often missed, because they are paid to the institution rather than to the employee. A payment made on someone's behalf is still a benefit to them; routing it straight to the school changes the paperwork, not the character of what was received. Some systems treat education support for an assignee's children more generously than others, and any relief comes from the domestic rules of each system rather than from the label on the package. Ask the mobility team which entity contracted with the school and which payroll is reporting the cost. Those two answers are often different, and the reporting one carries the exposure.
Who is liable if the employer under-withheld on relocation benefits?
The payer. Withholding is an obligation of the employer, and an employer that failed to withhold on a taxable benefit is liable for the amount it should have taken, whether or not it can still recover that from the employee. This is what makes relocation different from an item the employee reports on a personal return: the exposure sits on the company's payroll account, with interest running from the original due dates, and it usually surfaces years later when the assignment file is examined. The practical consequence is that the taxability question has to be settled before the benefit is delivered, not at year end when the payroll year is closed and the employee may have moved on.
Is employer-paid tax return preparation a taxable benefit?
Treat it as one until the rules of both systems say otherwise. Where a company pays for an assignee's returns to be prepared, the employee has received something of value, and several systems tax that as employment income even though the expense exists only because the company moved them. The treatment is not uniform: one authority may accept it as a cost of the assignment and the other may not, so the same invoice can be reportable in one payroll and not in the other. Settle the point when the work is scoped and record the conclusion in the assignment file. Otherwise the invoice is coded as a professional cost and never reaches payroll at all.
Should a housing allowance go through payroll or through expenses?
Through payroll, unless someone has tested it and concluded it is excluded in that system. Housing support arrives in forms that look alike and behave differently — a cash allowance, a lease held by the company, a rent contribution paid to a landlord — and the reporting follows the form rather than the intention. Coding it as an expense reimbursement is the common error, because it takes the amount out of the payroll record entirely, and the payroll record is what an authority examines. Where the employee works in two countries during the year, the allowance may also need apportioning on the same basis as salary, which requires a day count for the period the housing was provided.
Which countries have a tax treaty with the United States?
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.
Is double taxation legal?
Yes. Nothing prevents two countries from taxing the same income under their own domestic law — each is exercising its own jurisdiction. What treaties and credit systems do is relieve the outcome rather than prohibit the charge, and relief is generally something you must claim on a return or a form, not something applied automatically. Miss the claim and the double charge stands. Double taxation explains the mechanism.
