Do I have to sell my dental practice before emigrating?
Not necessarily, but you do have to decide what happens to it, because a practice is not an address on a return. It is premises, equipment, patient goodwill and often a corporate structure, and moving away does not detach you from any of that. Either the practice is disposed of, or it is restructured so that someone else runs it while you hold an interest, or it continues with you as a non-resident owner. Each route has a different consequence in both countries, and the choice is far cheaper to make before you go than to explain afterwards.
What happens to my practice goodwill when I move abroad?
Goodwill is property, and in most systems it can be disposed of, transferred or deemed to be disposed of in the same way as equipment or shares. That means the value attached to the patient list and the reputation of the practice can enter the calculation when you leave, whether or not any money changes hands. The difficulty is almost never the rule. It is that nobody has ever valued the goodwill, so there is no figure to work from and nothing on file. A defensible valuation at the right date is the step that makes everything after it arguable.
Am I employed or self-employed as a dental associate?
It depends on the arrangement, and the two countries involved may reach different answers on the same facts. Associate agreements sit close to the line: the practice supplies the chair, the nurse and the appointment book, while the associate carries their own indemnity and takes a share of fees. One country may look at that and see employment, the other a business. When they disagree, the same income can attract payroll obligations in one place and self-employment filing in the other. The written agreement matters, and so does how the relationship actually runs day to day.
Can I sell my practice and emigrate in the same year?
You can, and it is common, but the order of events changes the outcome. A sale completed while you are still resident is taxed under the rules of that residence. The same sale completed after you leave may be taxed differently, and the country you are moving to may also have something to say about proceeds received once you have arrived. The instalments, holdbacks and restrictive covenant payments that dental sales often include can straddle the move as well. Fixing the sequence deliberately, and recording the dates as you go, is worth more than any planning done afterwards.
Does my dental equipment count when I leave the country?
Equipment is business property, so it belongs in the same conversation as goodwill and shares rather than being treated as furniture. Chairs, imaging units and surgery fit-out have a written-down value in the practice accounts and a market value that may be quite different, and a disposal or restructuring on departure engages both. If the equipment stays behind and continues to be used in a practice you still own, that is a different position again. The common problem is that the accounts carry historic cost and nobody has looked at what the assets are now worth.
Who taxes my practice income after I have emigrated?
If the practice keeps operating in the country you left, that country continues to tax the profits earned there, because the activity, the premises and the patients are still on its soil. Your new country of residence will generally bring the same income into its own charge and then relieve the overlap. So expect to file in both places for as long as the practice runs. What the second return needs is not only the profit figure but the basis for it, in a form the new country recognises, which usually means the accounts being restated rather than translated.
Can I avoid capital gains tax on a foreign property?
Not by virtue of it being foreign — there is no exemption for that, and the "keep it offshore" advice you may have read is how people acquire penalties rather than savings. What genuinely reduces the gain is ordinary and legitimate: principal residence relief where the property qualifies and the designation is made correctly, a properly built cost base including acquisition costs and capital improvements, the timing of the disposition, the treaty rules for real property, and credit for the foreign tax paid. See principal residence and foreign property.
How do I actually stop being taxed twice?
In this order. Fix your residence under each country's own rules, and if both claim you, apply the treaty tie-breaker. Identify where each type of income is sourced. Read the article that covers that income type, because it decides who taxes and at what maximum rate. Then claim the relief on the residence-country return, with proof of the foreign tax. Most of the tax people lose to double taxation is lost at the last step, not the first. See how double taxation is relieved.
