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.
I pay no tax where I live, do I still have to report it?
Yes. A residence-based system taxes worldwide income regardless of what the source country charges, so a territorial jurisdiction that leaves foreign earnings untaxed locally does not remove the obligation at home. What changes is the relief rather than the reporting. Where no foreign tax has been paid there is nothing to credit, and the whole amount is exposed at home rates. The larger risk in this region is usually not the tax at all. It is the separate disclosure obligations attached to foreign accounts, companies and trusts, which carry penalties of their own and are assessed whether or not any tax was owing.
Does a Caribbean company I set up years ago need disclosing?
Almost certainly, and dormancy does not help. Disclosure obligations for foreign corporations generally turn on ownership and control, not on whether the company traded, earned anything or ever opened a bank account. Many of these structures were set up decades ago on advice that was accurate at the time and has since been overtaken by information-exchange agreements between the jurisdictions. We start by establishing what the entity actually is under home law, which is frequently not what its own constitutional documents call it, then work out which years are open and whether a voluntary correction is the sensible route before the authority raises the question itself.
My bank will not let me move money out, how is that taxed?
Currency controls restrict remittance, not liability. Under a residence-based system the income is generally brought into charge when it is earned or received in the source country, so funds blocked in a local account are still taxable at home even though you cannot reach them. That produces a cash-flow problem rather than a legal defence, and it needs documenting at the time rather than reconstructed later. We record the control that applies, the date the funds were credited and the terms on which release is possible, so the position is evidenced if the amount and the timing are ever questioned.
Which exchange rate do I use for income earned in local currency?
It depends on whether the item is a stream or a one-off event. Recurring income earned evenly through the year is commonly converted at an average rate for the year, while a single transaction such as a sale or a distribution is converted at the rate on the day it happened. In several countries in this region the complication is that more than one rate exists at the same time, an official rate and an effective market rate, and they differ widely. Choose one basis, document why it represents what you actually received, and apply it consistently across the whole file.
A relative set up an offshore trust for me, what do I report?
The first question is not what to report but what the arrangement really is. Many family structures in this region are described as trusts and operate as something else, or were settled by someone who has since died, which changes who is treated as behind them. We work out who contributed the property, who can benefit, who can be compelled to distribute, and whether you have received anything or merely could. Reporting obligations attach to contributions, to distributions and sometimes to mere entitlement, and they are separate from any tax. A beneficiary who has never received a payment can still have a filing obligation.
Can I claim credit for tax I paid in South America?
Usually, within limits. A foreign tax credit relieves double taxation by allowing the tax actually paid in the source country against the home tax on that same income, capped at what the home system would have charged on it. Two things commonly block a claim. The first is evidence, because a credit needs proof the tax was paid and not merely withheld and later refunded. The second is character, because a levy that is not an income tax, such as a turnover charge or a transaction duty, does not qualify however it is labelled. We check both before the return is prepared rather than after.
Do NRIs pay tax on money sent to India?
Sending your own funds to India is a transfer of capital, not income, so the remittance itself is not taxed. What is taxable is income the money then earns in India — interest, rent, capital gains — under the rules for the account type it sits in. Sending money out of India is the direction that needs certification before the bank will act. See NRE, NRO and FCNR accounts.
How does the treaty tie-breaker work when both countries say I am resident?
As a sequence, stopping at the first test that gives an answer: where you have a permanent home available; if in both or neither, where your centre of vital interests is; then habitual abode; then nationality; and if all of those tie, the two tax authorities decide by agreement. It is evidential rather than elective — you do not choose your treaty residence, you demonstrate it, which makes the record of homes, family and time the substance of the claim. See tie-breaking dual residency.
