Do I have to file at home while living in Brazil?
For most people the answer turns on whether the ties that made them resident have actually ended. For a US citizen or green-card holder it does not: the return is due in Brazil exactly as it would be at home. Everything else on the file follows from which of those you are.
Is there a treaty between my country and Brazil?
That is verified rather than assumed: we confirm which treaty text governs Brazil and your home country for the year in question, because a protocol can move a rate or an article between years. If there is no treaty, unilateral credit rules are what prevent double taxation.
I own property in Brazil. Where is the rent taxed?
Where the property is. That is close to universal, and it usually arrives as withholding on the gross rent rather than as a return on the profit — which is why the election onto a net basis, where Brazil offers one, is normally the first thing to check. Your home country taxes the same rent and credits what was paid.
Do I still file a Canadian return while working in Brazil?
Your filing obligation at home is decided by residence, not by where your desk is. Taking a Brazilian assignment does not end Canadian residence on its own; what matters is the pattern of ties you keep and the ones you give up — whether a home stays available to you, where your family lives, where your day-to-day life is run from. Many people on Brazilian contracts remain resident at home for the whole posting and file there as well as in Brazil. Others become non-resident from a date the documents can fix. Settle that date before the first return is prepared, because everything after it follows from the answer.
I left Brazil without filing the exit declaration — what happens?
Brazil applies its own registration and departure formalities to residents who leave. Where the exit declaration is not completed, the system can go on treating you as a Brazilian resident, and that status does not lapse merely because you have moved away and stopped filing. People usually discover it years later, when they try to deal with a Brazilian bank, a property or an inheritance and find an open resident filing history sitting behind them. The work is to establish the date residence actually ceased, complete the formalities from that date, and bring the intervening years into line. Slower than doing it at the time, but finite.
I am Brazilian and now live in Canada, where do I file?
Once you are resident in Canada you file there on your worldwide income, including anything still arising in Brazil — rent, interest, business income, distributions. Brazil may also tax the Brazilian-source items. The exercise is not choosing one country over the other but getting the order right: the source country taxes first, the residence country taxes the same income and gives relief for the foreign tax already suffered. That relief has to be claimed, and it is claimed on the income as characterised in the residence country's own terms, which is rarely a line-for-line copy of the Brazilian assessment.
Will my Brazilian salary be taxed twice?
Usually not in the end, but often along the way. Brazil taxes employment income earned there. If you remain resident at home, the same salary appears again on your home return, and relief comes from a credit for the foreign tax you actually paid on that income. Two things make the credit smaller than people expect. It is capped at the home tax on that same income, so a higher foreign charge is not fully relieved. And only genuine income taxes count, which is not every deduction shown on a foreign payslip. Keep the Brazilian assessment and the proof of payment; a credit claim is only as good as the evidence behind it.
Which country taxes my Brazilian bank interest and investments?
Both may have a claim. Brazil generally taxes income arising there, often by withholding at source, and your country of residence taxes the same income again as part of your worldwide total, relieving the Brazilian tax by credit. Separately, most home systems require residents to report foreign accounts and holdings even where little or no income arises, and that reporting duty runs whether or not tax is owed. The two are constantly confused. You report the holdings because you hold them; you claim the credit because tax was paid on what they earned.
How do I prove the date I left Canada for Brazil?
With documents rather than assertions. The useful set is the one showing a life ending in one place and starting in another: the dated end of a lease or the listing of a home, the employment contract and its start date, the Brazilian registration formalities, school enrolment, the closing of local accounts and memberships, the arrival record. No single item settles it. What settles it is a consistent picture assembled at the time rather than reconstructed years afterwards. Where the picture is genuinely mixed — a house kept, a spouse who follows later — say so in the file and take a position you can defend.
Do I owe state income tax if I live abroad?
Possibly, and it is the part Americans abroad most often miss. States are not parties to tax treaties, several do not follow the federal foreign earned income exclusion, and liability generally follows domicile rather than physical presence. A driver's licence, a voter registration, a home kept available and a mailing address are the facts a state weighs. Some states have no income tax at all, which is why the last state you were domiciled in matters so much. See state residency and domicile.
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.
