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.
How does the time difference affect getting my return filed?
It changes the rhythm, not the outcome. Most of an engagement is documents moving in one direction and questions coming back in the other, and neither needs both parties awake at the same moment. We send a list, you upload when it suits you, and we work on it during our own day. Calls are kept for the things that genuinely need a conversation — a residency date, a decision about which country to claim relief in — and are booked into a window you have agreed in advance. Nothing is filed until you have seen the draft and approved it.
Do I have to take calls in the middle of the night?
No. Calls are scheduled into windows that work at your end, and there are usually only a handful of them across a whole engagement. Everything else runs in writing, which has a second advantage: a written exchange leaves a record of what you told us and what we advised, and that record matters when a residency position has to be explained years later. If something comes up between calls, write it down and send it, and there will be a reply waiting when your day starts.
How do I send documents securely from overseas?
Through a secure portal rather than email attachments. You are given a place to upload, and you can add to it as papers come to hand rather than waiting until you have everything — a partial upload is usually enough for us to start and to tell you what is still missing. Signatures are handled electronically, so nothing has to be printed, couriered or posted across a border. Where a document exists only on paper at your end, a clear photograph is normally enough to work from while the original is retrieved.
Who signs the return if I am on the other side of the world?
You do. Authorisation is given electronically, and the practical effect of the distance is that the signature usually arrives the following morning our time. We do not file anything before that approval, and the draft you approve is the version that goes. Where a filing needs an authorisation for us to deal with the tax authority on your behalf, that is also signed electronically and put in place at the start of the engagement, so the paperwork is not the thing holding up a filing when a due date is close.
My local tax year does not match the Canadian one, does that matter?
It matters for the working papers rather than for the return itself. Canada taxes on a calendar year, so income recorded against a local year beginning in another month has to be split before it can be reported. That is mechanical work, but it has to be done consistently, because the same split decides which foreign year's tax is available as relief against which domestic year. We agree the method at the start, document it, and use the same basis every year, so successive returns can be compared against each other.
What happens if I have a question outside your working hours?
Write it down and send it. Questions that arrive while we are closed are picked up at the start of our day, which is often overnight at your end, so a reply is generally waiting when you next look. We will not put a turnaround time on it here, because the honest answer depends on the question: which document we need is answered quickly, whether a residency position holds needs the file read first. The number is +1 (416) 619-0068 if you would rather speak.
Do I get credit for all of the foreign tax I paid?
Only up to your own country's tax on that same income, and only for tax you were legally obliged to pay. Two consequences follow. Living somewhere that taxes you more heavily than your residence country does leaves an excess that becomes a carryover rather than a refund. And withholding suffered above the treaty rate is not creditable — the route back to that money is a refund claim in the country that took it. See claiming the credit.
What is double taxation?
Double taxation means the same income being taxed by two authorities. It comes in two forms: juridical, where two countries each tax one person on one amount, and economic, where two different people are taxed on the same underlying profit — a company on its earnings and a shareholder on the dividend paid out of them. Relief comes from a treaty, a foreign tax credit, or an exemption, and which one applies depends on the income type. How to avoid double taxation sets out the routes.
