Do I have to collect sales tax if Shopify does not?
Probably yes, in any market where you have crossed the local registration test. A marketplace can take the collection obligation onto itself, because the marketplace is treated as the supplier of the sale it facilitates. Your own storefront is not that. When you sell direct to the consumer, the place-of-supply rule, the registration test and the collection all sit with you. The practical consequence is that nobody is monitoring your position on your behalf. A checkout will charge or not charge tax according to how it was configured, and that configuration is a setting rather than a legal position. The first step is a market-by-market list of where you sell, on what volumes, tested against each market's own rule.
Does stock held abroad by my fulfilment partner create a registration?
It often does, and it is the thing a direct-to-consumer brand most commonly discovers late. Many indirect tax systems treat holding stock inside the country as a connection to that country in its own right, separate from how much you sell there. A third-party logistics provider may move your inventory between its warehouses for operational reasons without telling you which country the goods are sitting in on any given day. Your registration position can therefore change because of a decision you did not make. Ask your provider for a stock-by-location report, keep it, and test each location against local rules rather than assuming a sales threshold is the only trigger.
How do I know when I have crossed a foreign registration threshold?
By measuring in advance against each market's own test rather than a single global figure. Tests differ in what they count. Some look at sales to consumers only, some at every supply, some at transaction counts, and the measurement window varies between a calendar year, a rolling year and a forward-looking projection. Your order data already holds what is needed. What is usually missing is a report that splits it by destination market on the same basis the market itself uses. Build that report, review it each month, and set an internal review point below each threshold so a registration is arranged before the trigger date rather than after it.
Do refunds and returns change the tax I already reported?
Yes, and they are frequently left out entirely. A refund reverses a supply that has already been reported, so the tax charged on the original sale is normally adjusted in the period the refund is made. Brands that grew quickly often report from a gross sales figure taken from the storefront while the refunds sit in the payment processor and never reach the return. The result is tax remitted on revenue that was given back to the customer. Reconcile the storefront, the payment processor and the tax return to a single figure each period. Where refunds were missed in earlier periods, the correction usually runs through an amendment rather than a netting in the current one.
Which country's rules decide where my sale is taxed?
For indirect tax on goods sold to consumers, the usual answer is the market you are delivering into, not the one you are sitting in. That is the shift that catches direct-to-consumer brands. You are used to one set of domestic rules, and your customers have quietly made you a supplier in several other systems. Each of those markets applies its own place-of-supply rule, its own registration test and its own filing calendar, and none of them is coordinated with the others. Treat each as a separate question with a separate answer, and write the answer down so it can be revisited as your delivery pattern changes.
Should I register for tax in every country I ship to?
No. Registration where it is not required creates filing obligations, deadlines and penalties for late returns, all for no benefit. The discipline is to test each market on its own rule and register where the answer is yes. The harder judgement is the market you are close to crossing. The cost of registering early is a run of nil returns; the cost of registering late is uncollected tax you may have to fund yourself, because you cannot go back to past customers for it. That asymmetry is the reason monitoring matters more than the registration decision itself.
Does foreign employment income create RRSP room?
Only where it is earned income reported on a Canadian return. RRSP room is built from earned income that Canada sees, so a non-resident year of foreign salary generally builds none, and foreign tax paid does not create room of its own. This is why people returning to Canada after years abroad find their contribution room much smaller than the years elapsed suggest, and why the notice of assessment is the only reliable statement of it. See returning to Canada after years abroad.
Is double taxation illegal?
It is legal. Two countries can each have a valid claim on the same income — one because the income arose there, the other because you live there — and nothing prohibits both from exercising it. What exists instead is relief: tax treaties allocate the claim, and domestic law gives a credit for foreign tax paid. The relief is not automatic, though. It is claimed on a return, and unclaimed relief is simply lost. See how double taxation is relieved.
