Do I have to file at home while living in Argentina?
It depends on residence, not on address — except for US citizens and green-card holders, for whom the answer is yes regardless of where they live. We settle the residence question first, because every other answer follows from it.
Is there a treaty between my country and Argentina?
Treaty networks change with each protocol and each multilateral-instrument position, so we confirm the treaty in force for your specific year with the issuing authority rather than relying on a published summary. Where there is none, unilateral relief and domestic law do the work instead.
I own property in Argentina. Where is the rent taxed?
In Argentina, because that is where the property sits. The complication is the base: gross-rent withholding takes no account of mortgage interest, tax or repairs, so a leveraged property can face tax on turnover. An election onto net profit, where it exists, is what fixes that — and it has its own timing.
Which exchange rate should I use for my Argentine income?
Use one defensible rate and be able to show where it came from. Argentina has operated more than one exchange practice at a time, so the figure your bank applied, the figure a published source shows and the figure your home country expects can all differ on one and the same date. We fix a method at the start of the engagement, apply it consistently to income, to expenses and to any tax paid, and keep the source evidence with the working papers. A consistent, documented method survives questions from either revenue authority. A rate chosen because it suits the answer does not.
Do I still file in Canada if I live in Argentina?
Residence decides it, and residence is a question of facts rather than of where you happen to be posted. If your home, your family and your day-to-day ties remain in Canada while you work in Argentina, Canada is likely to continue treating you as resident and taxing your worldwide income, with relief for Argentine tax coming through a credit. If the ties genuinely moved, there is a departure year to compute and a date to evidence. We start by settling residence for each year in question, because the reporting, the credits and the disclosures all follow from that one answer.
I inherited a flat in Buenos Aires — what must I report?
Two things, usually. The asset itself may fall within your home country's foreign asset disclosure, which turns on ownership and value rather than on whether the flat produces any income. Separately, rent is income in the year it arises and is reported at home as well as in Argentina, with the Argentine tax credited rather than ignored. Both need a converted figure, so the value at the date you inherited the interest matters and is worth pinning down early. Estates settle slowly, and reconstructing a value years afterwards is far harder than recording it now.
How do I prove the rate my Argentine bank actually applied?
Keep the transaction advice, not only the statement line. A statement often shows just the converted amount, which leaves the rate to be inferred, and an inferred rate is exactly what gets questioned. Ask the bank or the exchange house for the advice showing the gross amount, the rate and the fee, and file it with the year it belongs to. Where no advice can be obtained, we fall back to a published source, record which source and which date we used, and apply that same source across the whole year so the return is internally consistent.
My employer posted me to Argentina — will I be taxed twice?
Generally not twice on the same income, but relief is not automatic. Argentina taxes employment income earned there and collects much of it at source, while your home country may continue to tax you on worldwide income if you remain resident there. The overlap is resolved by a credit for the foreign tax, and a credit has to be evidenced: the payslips, the withholding certificates and a conversion you can defend. Posting agreements matter too, because who bears the tax, and how any equalisation payment is treated, can change what is reported on either side.
Does Argentine tax withheld at source count against my home tax?
It can, provided the tax is of a kind your home country relieves, it is final rather than refundable, and you can show that you bore it. Withholding taken from a payment is often provisional, so if a later Argentine filing repays part of it, the credit claimed at home has to match what you ultimately paid rather than what was first deducted. We reconcile the withholding certificates to the Argentine return before claiming anything, and where an Argentine repayment lands in a later year we adjust the home position instead of leaving the two records disagreeing.
What are the foreign tax credit categories, and why does it matter which one I am in?
The credit is computed separately for each category of income — passive, general, foreign branch, the global intangible inclusion, and income resourced by treaty — each with its own limitation. It matters because excess credit in one category cannot shelter tax in another. Salary earned abroad is general; dividends, interest, rent and portfolio gains are passive. Getting the split wrong tends to manufacture unusable credit while leaving real tax uncovered. See Form 1116.
Can I contribute to an IRA on income I excluded?
No, and this is a real cost of the exclusion. A contribution needs taxable compensation, and income excluded under Form 2555 is not taxable compensation — so an American abroad who excludes their whole salary can have no contribution room at all, traditional or Roth. Someone who instead claims the foreign tax credit keeps the income in the base and keeps the room. It is one of several reasons to model both routes rather than default to the exclusion. See exclusion against credit.
