Do I have to file at home while living in Germany?
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 Germany 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 Germany?
Possibly, and the version in force for your year is the one that matters — protocols and multilateral-instrument positions change what a treaty does without changing its name. We check it against the authority rather than a summary. Where no treaty applies, domestic relief takes over.
I own property in Germany. Where is the rent taxed?
In Germany, 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.
When do I become a Canadian tax resident again after Germany?
On the day your ties are re-established, which is usually the day you arrive intending to stay — but the date is proved by facts rather than by intention. A lease or a purchase, the family's arrival, a job starting, health coverage, accounts and licences reopened: these are what fix it. The date matters because the year of return is split. Income arising before it is treated one way and income after it another, and whether German tax on the earlier part can be relieved depends on which side of the line that income falls. Fix the date before anything is filed.
Do I have to deregister in Germany when I move back?
German employment taxation runs through a registration-based payroll system, and leaving without closing that off is the most common reason deductions continue after you have gone. The formalities are the mechanism by which the German side learns you have stopped being taxable there, and the annual assessment is where any over-deduction is put right. Do both. An unresolved German registration also complicates the home file, because the foreign tax you want to claim credit for is not final until that assessment has issued.
German payroll kept deducting tax after I left, what now?
Two separate jobs. In Germany, the over-deduction is recovered through the annual assessment once the employment and the registration are properly closed off; the payslips alone do not settle it. At home, the credit you claim has to be for the German tax you finally bear, not the amount withheld along the way, so a home return filed early on withheld figures will need adjusting when the assessment arrives. Where the timing allows, wait for it. Where it does not, file correctly and amend, keeping the German documents that explain why the figure moved.
Is a German bonus paid after I moved home taxable in Germany?
Where employment income is taxable generally follows where the work was done, not where the payment lands. A bonus paid after you return but earned for German service is usually still German employment income and may be taxed there, while your home country taxes it too because you are resident when you receive it. Relief is by credit. The practical work is evidencing the period the payment relates to — the plan documents, the grant and vesting dates, the performance period — because the apportionment rests on that evidence and on nothing else.
What happens to my German pension contributions when I return?
The entitlement built up while you were contributing does not disappear because you have left. It generally sits until it becomes payable, and it is taxed when paid rather than when earned. Once you are resident at home again, a German pension received forms part of your worldwide income there, with relief where Germany also taxes it. What matters now is record-keeping: keep the contribution statements and the employment dates, because the eventual claim and the eventual home return will both be built from them, often many years later.
Do I have to report my German bank accounts once I am back?
Reporting foreign holdings and paying tax on them are different duties, and re-establishing residence switches both on. The disclosure generally attaches to holding assets abroad above a threshold set at home, whether or not any income arises, and it starts from the point you are resident again — so accounts left open in Germany, investment holdings and, depending on how it is used, property can all fall inside it. Take the inventory in the year you return, rather than in the year somebody asks you about it.
Does my foreign spouse have to pay US tax?
Not unless something connects them to the US system: they are a citizen or green card holder, they meet the substantial presence test, they have US-source income, or you elect to treat them as a US resident so you can file jointly. That election is the one people make without weighing it, because it reaches their foreign salary, their foreign investments and their foreign accounts, not just their name on the form. See a US person with a non-resident spouse.
What is a dual-status alien?
Someone who is a US tax resident for part of a year and a non-resident for the rest of it — almost always the year of arrival or the year of departure. You file one return covering both periods, with worldwide income and ordinary deductions for the resident part and US-source income under the non-resident rules for the other. Several ordinary reliefs, including joint filing, are restricted for the year. See dual-status alien.
