Do I have to file at home while living in Saudi Arabia?
Residence decides it, and residence is a question of facts rather than of where your post arrives. The one exception is US citizenship, which carries the filing obligation with the person wherever they go. So the first thing we establish is which system still claims you.
Is there a treaty between my country and Saudi Arabia?
That is verified rather than assumed: we confirm which treaty text governs Saudi Arabia 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 Saudi Arabia. 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 Saudi Arabia offers one, is normally the first thing to check. Your home country taxes the same rent and credits what was paid.
When do I become a Canadian resident again after Saudi Arabia?
On the day your residential ties are re-established, which is usually the day you arrive intending to stay and take up a home. It is a date, not a tax year, and everything else hangs off it. Income earned before that date while you were genuinely non-resident stays outside the Canadian return; income after it comes in. The complication in Gulf cases is that residence may never have ended in the first place, particularly on rotational contracts, in which case there is nothing to re-establish and the earlier years are what need attention. Work out the departure position before you work out the return position.
Do I owe tax at home on Saudi salary earned before I returned?
Only if you were still resident when you earned it. If your ties were genuinely severed on departure, salary earned in the Kingdom while you were non-resident sits outside the home-country return, and the year you come back is filed as a part year running from your arrival date. If your ties were never severed, the whole picture changes: the salary was taxable at home all along, and because Gulf employment income generally carries no local tax, there is no foreign credit available to reduce the bill. That is why a move home so often starts with a review of the departure rather than of the arrival.
What if I never filed a departure return when I left?
It is common and it is fixable, but it is better fixed before anything else is filed. A missing departure return usually means the file at home still shows you as resident, and the first return you lodge after coming back is what draws attention to the gap. The work is to establish what your position actually was in the year you left, whether ties were severed and on what date, and then to file consistently from that point forward. The order matters. Filing a resident return for the year you came back, while the departure year says something different, sets up a contradiction on your own file.
Do I have to pay state tax again when I move back?
Very likely, and possibly for years you thought were closed. A US state generally taxes people it considers domiciled there, and domicile is sticky: some states treat a person who left for an overseas contract as never having given it up, particularly where a home, a licence or a voter registration stayed behind. Moving back confirms the connection in the state's eyes and can prompt a look at the intervening years. The federal position is separate and does not change with the move, because citizens file wherever they live. Deal with the state question deliberately rather than assuming the move home simply restarts the clock.
Is my end of service payment from a Saudi employer taxable at home?
It depends on which side of your residence date it falls and what the payment is for. A sum paid in recognition of service performed while you were non-resident is not automatically home-country income just because it lands in your account after you arrive. Equally, a sum that is really deferred remuneration for a period when you were resident does not escape by being paid late. So the facts that decide it are the period the payment relates to and the date your residence changed. Ask the employer for its calculation in writing before you leave, showing what the sum covers and how it was worked out.
How do I bring my Gulf savings home without it being taxed?
Moving your own capital across a border is not, in itself, a taxable event. What causes trouble is not being able to show that it is capital. If the savings accumulated out of salary earned while you were non-resident, the money is evidence of income that sat outside the home-country net, and a large transfer arriving with no explanation looks the same as unreported income until you can show otherwise. Keep the employment contract, the payslips and the bank statements for the whole period abroad. Banks and revenue authorities ask the same question, and the answer is documentary rather than legal.
How would a foreign tax authority know I am resident there?
Mostly from information you or your bank already provided. Account-opening forms ask you to self-certify tax residence, and that certification is reported between authorities under the Common Reporting Standard or, for US accounts, under the FATCA framework. Beyond that: employer and payroll filings, property registries, immigration records and the tax filings of anyone who paid you. The realistic planning assumption is that the data arrives. See FATCA and information reporting.
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.
