If Dubai does not tax my salary, does Canada tax it?
If you are still resident in Canada, yes. Canada taxes a resident's worldwide employment income regardless of where it was earned or whether the other country taxed it. And because no foreign tax was paid, there is nothing to credit, so the usual relief mechanism is simply absent. That is what makes this corridor unlike a corridor between two taxing systems. There is no order of taxation to argue about and no credit to compute. The single question that decides the outcome is whether, and when, your Canadian residence ended.
I work in the UAE. Am I still a Canadian tax resident?
That is the whole file, and it is decided on facts rather than on a visa. What counts is the ties you kept and the ties you formed: a home available to you, where a spouse and children live, where belongings and vehicles are, memberships, licences, health coverage and banking arrangements. A Gulf residence visa is evidence of something, but it does not by itself end Canadian residence. The test is also continuous: residence can be argued to have ended and then, on the strength of later visits and retained ties, to have resumed.
Why can I not claim a foreign tax credit on my Gulf salary?
Because a credit relieves tax you actually paid elsewhere, and if no personal income tax was levied on the employment income there is no foreign tax to relieve. People arrive expecting the double-tax machinery to do the work and find it has nothing to grip. That is not a loophole in either direction; it moves the entire question onto residence. If residence ended, Canada has no claim on that employment income at all. If it did not end, the income is fully taxable in Canada with no offset beneath it.
I kept my house in Canada while working abroad. Does that matter?
It is one of the heaviest facts in the analysis, particularly where the house stayed available to you rather than being let on ordinary commercial terms to an unconnected tenant. A dwelling kept ready for your return, with family or belongings in it, points strongly to residence continuing, and if residence continued your Gulf employment income was taxable in Canada throughout, with no foreign tax to set against it. Whether it is decisive depends on the rest of the picture, but it is rarely a neutral fact and should never be left undocumented.
I moved back to Canada from the Gulf. Do I report my savings?
Income from them, from the date your Canadian residence began. Balances built up while you were non-resident are not taxed retrospectively, but what those balances earn afterwards is, and the holdings themselves may fall into Canada's annual foreign property reporting. So the date residence resumed does two jobs: it starts the income clock and it sets the values that later computations run from. Fix that date and record what you held on it. Coming in, the question is whether Gulf-period income and assets were picked up correctly once residence began.
Does a UAE residence visa make me a non-resident of Canada?
No. It is a fact you can put in evidence, alongside a tenancy, a local employment contract, a family's school enrolment and the closing of Canadian ties. On its own it is not determinative, and relying on it is the commonest reason a departure is later reopened. What carries weight is the pattern: what was given up in Canada, what was established abroad, and whether the two are consistent over a run of years rather than only in the month you left.
What happens if the two countries disagree about which of them can tax me?
The treaty has a procedure for exactly that. You apply to the competent authority in your residence country, which takes the case up with its counterpart, and the two negotiate a position that removes the double taxation. Some treaties add binding arbitration if they cannot agree. It is slow and it runs on documents, so the practical work is preserving the record and filing protective claims while the clock runs. See our treaty work.
Is the sale of foreign property taxable where I live?
For a resident, yes — worldwide gains are taxable, and the gain is computed in your own currency, so the exchange rate at purchase and at sale changes the number even when the local-currency price did not move. The country where the property sits usually taxes it too, often with a withholding or clearance step before closing, and that tax becomes a credit. A principal residence relief may apply to a home abroad on the same terms as one at home. See principal residence and foreign property.
