Do I have to file at home while living in Morocco?
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 Morocco?
That is verified rather than assumed: we confirm which treaty text governs Morocco 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 Morocco. 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 Morocco offers one, is normally the first thing to check. Your home country taxes the same rent and credits what was paid.
Is rental income from my Moroccan flat taxable in Canada?
If you are resident in Canada it is reportable, and it is reportable even if the rent never leaves Morocco. Where tax has already been collected locally on the payment, that does not remove the income from the home return; it becomes a credit against the home tax on the same rent. The figure you report is rebuilt under home rules from the gross rent and your own expenses, which rarely equals the local net amount. The property itself may also be disclosable as a foreign holding, separately from the income it produces.
Tax was collected on my Moroccan rent — can I claim it?
Usually yes, as a credit rather than a deduction, and it is capped by the home tax on that same income, so an unusually heavy local charge is not fully relieved. The condition is evidence. You need something showing the amount collected, on which property and for which period — a statement from the agent or tenant who withheld it, or the local filing that accounts for it. Where rent is collected at source by somebody else, ask for that documentation when the arrangement starts. It is much harder to obtain once a tenancy has ended.
I am selling inherited property in Morocco — what do I report?
At home, the gain from the value when you acquired your interest to the price it sells for, converted into home currency at the rates applying on each of those dates rather than at today's rate. Locally, the sale carries its own formalities, and transfer and registration steps have to be completed before proceeds move. The two are connected: the local documents are what evidence your figures at home, and the tax paid locally is what supports the credit. Assemble the succession papers, the registry extracts and a value at acquisition before the sale is agreed, not afterwards.
Do rotations in Morocco make me non-resident at home?
Rarely by themselves. A rotation usually leaves the home ties intact — the house, the family, the banking arrangements, the return date — and those are what residence is decided on. Time abroad is evidence, not a rule. Where a rotational worker does become non-resident it is normally because the whole household moved and the home base was given up, not because a schedule reached some number of days. The consequence of assuming otherwise is years of unfiled returns at home, with foreign tax that can no longer be credited against them.
Does an aid-sector salary earned in Morocco get taxed at home?
Start with who pays you, because it changes the analysis. Employment by an international organisation is not the same as employment by a company or by a government, and some of those arrangements carry their own exemptions or their own allocation of taxing rights, agreed between the organisation and the country it operates in. Those documents, not general principle, decide the local position. Your home country then asks its own questions about residence and about whether it recognises the exemption. Get the employment letter and the organisation's own tax guidance read before anything is filed.
What records should I keep for a family property in Morocco?
More than feels necessary, and earlier. The set that answers almost every later question is the succession or purchase documents, the registry extract, a value at the date you acquired your interest, translations of each, the lease and rent records if it is let, and evidence of any local tax collected. The reason is that the home computation is built entirely from documents held abroad, in another language, often produced by people who will be harder to reach in ten years. Nothing on that list is expensive to obtain now, and all of it is expensive to reconstruct.
How is my RRSP taxed if I move to the United States?
The treaty lets a US resident defer US tax on the income accruing inside an RRSP or RRIF until it is distributed, which is what stops annual growth being taxed with no cash to pay it — but the position has to be taken and, historically, disclosed. On withdrawal Canada takes withholding as the source country and the United States taxes the distribution with a credit, complicated by the fact that the two systems can measure the taxable portion differently. Contributions and basis need tracking from the start. See treaty relief for RRSPs, 401(k)s and IRAs.
Do US citizens living abroad have to pay US taxes?
They have to file, every year, on worldwide income — the United States taxes citizens wherever they live. Whether they end up owing is a different question: the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, the foreign housing exclusion and the foreign tax credit frequently reduce the bill to nil while leaving the filing obligation fully intact. Foreign account and asset reports run separately and carry their own penalties. See US citizens living in Canada.
