Streamlined catch-up — document pack
The pack a streamlined submission is built from, assembled before any authority is contacted.
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The pack a streamlined submission is built from, assembled before any authority is contacted.
The document pack
- Every year's income records for the years in scope, by country
- Every foreign account for the period, with the statement showing its highest balance each year
- Foreign asset lists for each year, not just the current one
- Any foreign entity or trust documents — formation, ownership, accounts
- A chronology of when you learned of the filing obligation, and from whom
- Records of any professional advice received, and what it said
- Immigration and residence history for the period
- Copies of anything already filed, including partial or amended filings
Why each of these is asked for
The certification is a signed narrative and the pack is what makes it true. The chronology and the advice records are the part clients skip and the part that decides eligibility, because the whole submission turns on how the failure came about rather than on how much is owed.
How to get this moving
Send what you have and we will tell you what is missing. A complete pack is usually the difference between a filing that takes a fortnight and one that takes a season. We would rather scope it properly than quote it quickly.
Read and approved for the 2025 and 2026 filing seasons by Udit Gupta, Cross-Border Tax Expert, Legal Quotient Consultants. General information, not advice for your circumstances — call our 24-hour helpline to discuss your own position.
International tax accountant — what this page covers
If you came here for international tax accountant, this is where it is dealt with. The subject is streamlined catch-up, and the page covers who it reaches, what then has to be filed, and what we charge to do the work.
Why clients bring streamlined catch-up — document pack to us
Cross-border is the whole practice
International and cross-border tax is all we do — not a sideline next to domestic work. The edge cases on this page are our ordinary Tuesday.
Filed with the authority, not just prepared
The engagement runs to submission and to the correspondence that follows it, including the queries that arrive months later.
The order of filing is planned, not improvised
Which return goes first decides whether relief can be claimed at all. That sequence is worked out before anything is submitted.
A named reviewer on every file
Every page on this site and every file we deliver says which practitioner reviewed it — a person, not a team inbox.
Cross-border tax case studies
Bank letter prompted a catch-up built before any authority was contacted
A client received a request for tax residency information from a bank abroad and realised filings had never been made. Nothing was sent anywhere for several weeks while the pack was assembled: income records by country for the years in scope, account statements showing the highest balance reached in each year, and a written chronology of what had prompted the realisation and when. The work consisted of establishing the facts before choosing a route. The engagement produced a complete submission with a certification the client could sign as an accurate account of their own conduct.
Returns filed for years where foreign account reports never were
The client had filed income tax returns throughout but had never made the separate foreign account reports, on the understanding that the accounts appeared somewhere on the returns already. The two obligations are separate and the years in scope for each differ. We reconciled what had been filed against the account list, identified the reports missing for each year, and gathered the statements to support them. The engagement produced a submission that fitted alongside the existing filings rather than contradicting them, with the reason for the original misunderstanding set out in the certification.
Closed accounts traced through institutions for a multi-year submission
Several of the accounts in scope had been closed, and the institutions were in two countries. Access had lapsed with the accounts, so the records had to be requested formally. We wrote to each institution, logged what was asked for and when, and pursued what did not arrive. Where an institution could not produce a year, the request correspondence was kept with the working papers. The engagement produced account histories with the highest balance identified for each year, and a documented record of the gaps and of what had been done to close them.
Foreign company documents gathered before the personal filings were prepared
The client held shares in a company incorporated abroad and had assumed it sat outside a personal catch-up. Entity ownership carries its own reporting, and preparing the personal returns first would have meant reopening them. We obtained the formation documents, the share register, the accounts for the period and the company's bank records, then worked outwards to the personal position. The engagement produced a submission in which the entity reporting and the personal returns were consistent with one another, and prepared in the order that avoided rework.
Residence history reconstructed for a client who had moved repeatedly
The client had lived in four countries across the period in scope and was unclear which years carried a filing obligation. Passports, visas, entry stamps, tenancy agreements and employment records were assembled into a dated history before any return was drafted. The work consisted of establishing where the client was, and under what status, year by year. The engagement produced a documented residence history that set the scope of the submission, and returns prepared only for the years that history supported, rather than for a defensive span chosen to feel safe.
Earlier partial filings reconciled before a submission was assembled
The client had attempted a catch-up some years earlier without advice, filing a few returns and one amended year, and could not remember what had gone in. We requested the account transcripts, established exactly what had been lodged and what each filing said, and set that against the position the new package would take. Two of the earlier years needed nothing further. The engagement produced a submission covering only what was genuinely outstanding, with the earlier attempt described in the certification rather than left to be discovered.
Catching Up From Inside the United States
The domestic route suits a filer who was resident in the US through the missed years, and it differs from the offshore one in what it asks for and what it costs. Choosing between them before anything is filed is the whole engagement.
Read how this one runsInterest and Penalties Put to a Relief Application
Relief is discretionary and is decided on the circumstances that caused the delay, evidenced year by year. The application is built from the same chronology the filings rest on, so the two cannot contradict each other.
Read how this one runsAll case studies — every published engagement in one place.
Core International & Cross-Border Tax Services
International Tax Planning & Advisory
Strategy and compliance for income, assets and families spread across borders.
U.S. & Cross-Border Tax Returns
Expat & Emigration Tax
Non-Resident Canadian Tax
Transfer Pricing & BEPS
Tax Treaties & Withholding
Cross-Border Estates & Trusts
Global Investments & Reporting
Cross-Border Corporate Tax
India Tax for NRIs & Returning Residents
Canadian Tax with a Foreign Element
UAE Tax for Expats & Their Home Country
Industries & Client Types We Serve Worldwide
Global E-commerce & Marketplaces
- Foreign VAT / GST / sales tax registrations
- Marketplace withholding reviews
- Inventory nexus & PE analysis
- Multi-currency books reconciled
Technology & SaaS
- Cross-border revenue sourcing & withholding
- IP structuring with real substance
- Equity for cross-border teams
- U.S. expansion: entity & PE setup
Professional Services Firms
- Reg 105 / 102 waivers
- Permanent establishment risk
- Partner mobility planning
- Cross-border withholding recovery
Cross-Border Real Estate
- Section 216 rental returns
- FIRPTA withholding recovery
- Section 116 clearance
- Treaty credit optimization
Importers, Exporters & Manufacturers
- Transfer pricing documentation (s.247)
- Customs value vs transfer price
- Foreign affiliate reporting (T1134)
- Country-by-country reporting
Athletes, Artists & Entertainers
Performance income is taxed where earned — Regulation 105 in Canada, withholding agreements in the U.S. — with special treaty articles overriding the usual rules.
Performance income is taxed where the performance happens, and the deduction is usually taken at source on the gross fee before expenses. Recovering the difference is a filing exercise in the other country, and it only works if the tour, the residency and the withholding certificates were documented while the work was being done.
- Reg 105 & U.S. CWA agreements
- Multi-state & country calendars
- Touring income allocation
- Royalty & image-rights withholding
Remote Workers & Digital Nomads
- Residency analysis before moving
- Employer payroll exposure
- Totalization & social security
- Foreign tax credits
Investment Funds & Holding Companies
- Treaty access & PPT reviews
- FAPI & surplus computations
- Withholding-efficient routing
- Governance & substance
