Do I need to come to your office?
No, though you are welcome to: we have offices in India, the USA, Canada and the UAE. Documents move through a secure portal, and meetings can be in person or by video, arranged around your time zone. Clients in the Gulf, India, Europe and across North America all work with us the same way.
Does it matter which of your offices handles my file?
No. The same named reviewer signs off, the same authorisation is filed with the tax authorities, and the same fixed fee is agreed in writing before any work starts.
My employer granted stock options before I moved to Markham who taxes them?
Employment income from an option is generally sourced to where the work that earned it was performed, not to where you happened to be standing when you exercised. So a grant that vested over a period spanning your arrival is usually split: the part relating to duties performed abroad stays connected to that country, and the part relating to duties performed here is Canadian employment income. Canada taxes a resident on worldwide income and relieves the overlap by crediting foreign tax properly imposed on the foreign slice. The work is arithmetic on a workday basis, supported by the plan agreement, the grant letters and your travel record. Without those documents the apportionment is guesswork, and guesswork is what gets reassessed.
Do I have to tell the CRA about my Hong Kong company shares?
If you are resident in Canada, yes, and in two separate ways. The shares themselves fall within the annual disclosure of foreign property once the total cost of your specified foreign holdings passes the reporting threshold, and that disclosure is required whether or not the company ever paid you anything. Separately, some of what the company earns can be attributed to you before any dividend is declared, depending on who controls it and what kind of income it makes. A dormant family holding that has never distributed a cent still has to be declared. The difficulty is usually evidential rather than legal: obtaining accounts from an overseas company secretary in a form that can be converted and reconciled.
My RSUs vested after I landed is the whole amount Canadian income?
Not necessarily. Vesting is the moment the income crystallises, but it is not what fixes the source. Work back over the period between grant and vest and ask where the duties were performed. If part of that period was spent working for the same employer abroad, that share is foreign-source employment income and the other country may tax it, even though the payroll entry landed here. Canada taxes the whole amount as a resident and gives credit for foreign tax properly imposed on the foreign part. Two practical points: your employer's payroll will rarely make that split for you, and the withholding at vest is sometimes taken in the wrong country altogether, which is a reclaim rather than a credit.
How is a Taiwan family company taxed when the owner lives here?
Owning shares does not by itself bring the company's profits into Canadian tax, but it can. Once a Canadian resident controls, or holds a large enough interest in, a foreign company, the Canadian rules look through to certain kinds of income, typically passive receipts such as rent, interest and gains, and tax them in the shareholder's hands in the year the company earns them. Active trading profits are generally left alone until they are distributed. So the first task on a Taiwanese holding is not a return at all. It is classifying what the company actually earns and establishing who controls it after a generation of informal transfers. That classification decides whether you have an annual inclusion or only a disclosure.
Will I be taxed twice if I sell employer shares in two countries?
Treaty relief and the foreign tax credit exist to prevent exactly that, but relief is neither automatic nor always complete. Two things break it. The first is mismatched timing: if one country taxes at vest and the other at sale, the credit can fall in a year with no matching income to absorb it. The second is mismatched character: one country may treat the entire gain as employment income while the other splits it between employment income and a capital gain, and credit is only given against tax on the same income. The remedy is usually procedural rather than clever. File both sides from one set of working papers instead of letting two preparers arrive at their answers independently.
I inherited part of a mainland China business what must I report?
Inheriting is not itself a taxable receipt in Canada, so the first year is mostly disclosure rather than tax. From the date the interest becomes yours you hold foreign property, and if the total cost of your specified foreign holdings is over the reporting threshold it belongs on the annual foreign property disclosure. After that, some of the company's income may be attributed to you, distributions are taxable when received, and Chinese tax withheld on those distributions becomes creditable against the Canadian tax on the same income. Establish the cost of the interest at the date of death early. It is the starting point for every later calculation and it becomes very hard to evidence years afterwards.
Is double taxation illegal?
It is legal. Two countries can each have a valid claim on the same income — one because the income arose there, the other because you live there — and nothing prohibits both from exercising it. What exists instead is relief: tax treaties allocate the claim, and domestic law gives a credit for foreign tax paid. The relief is not automatic, though. It is claimed on a return, and unclaimed relief is simply lost. See how double taxation is relieved.
Can an accountant in one country file my return in another?
Yes, where they are authorised to represent you with that tax authority and the filing is done electronically. What matters is not where the adviser sits but whether they can lawfully act for you and are competent in both systems — a return prepared with no knowledge of the other country is where the relief gets missed. We file on both sides, from offices in India, the USA, Canada and the UAE. See how we work.
