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 moved to Vancouver from Hong Kong, is my old income taxable here?
It depends almost entirely on the date you became resident, and that date is a question of fact rather than a choice. Income arising before it is generally outside the charge at home, income arising after it is generally within charge wherever in the world it comes from. So the whole year turns on a single dividing line, and people routinely take that line from the date on a visa or a flight when the facts point somewhere else. We fix it from what you actually did, where the home was, where the family went and when the ties on each side changed.
Hong Kong does not tax my offshore income, does Canada?
A source-based system charges what arises within its borders and leaves the rest alone. A residence-based system charges its residents on worldwide income. Once you are resident here the second rule applies to you, so income the other jurisdiction deliberately does not tax is not thereby untaxed. It simply falls to be taxed here in full, and because nothing was paid there, there is no foreign tax to credit against it. This catches people who arrive believing their structure was settled. The structure may be perfectly sound. It is the residence that changed underneath it.
Do I get credit for mainland China tax on my Canadian return?
Generally yes, for tax that is genuinely an income tax, genuinely paid, and charged on income also taxed here. The relief is capped at what the home system would have charged on that same income, so a higher foreign rate does not produce a refund of the excess. In practice the claims that fail do so on evidence rather than principle. A credit needs proof of payment that a reviewer can follow, and withholding certificates, payment receipts and the annual settlement filing do not always agree with each other. We reconcile them before the return is prepared.
My family keeps property in Taiwan, does it need to be reported?
Report and taxable are two different questions, and the reporting one is usually the sharper of the two. Foreign property disclosure obligations typically turn on ownership and cost rather than on whether the asset produced any income, so a property that sits empty and earns nothing can still be reportable. Ownership itself is the harder part in family holdings, because title is often in a parent's or a sibling's name while the money and the use sit elsewhere. We establish who beneficially owns what before deciding what goes on a T1135, not after.
I still work for a Hong Kong employer while living in Vancouver, where is that taxed?
Employment income is generally taxed where the duties are physically performed, and separately by your country of residence on your worldwide income. Living here and working for an employer there usually means the duties are performed here, which changes the answer most people expect. Treaty relief exists for short assignments in the other direction but rarely helps someone who has genuinely moved. There is also an employer-side question, because paying someone who works here can create obligations for the payer. We look at both, since the employee's return is not the whole exposure.
When did I actually become a Canadian tax resident?
On the date your residential ties here became the significant ones, which is a factual test and not a form you file. The things that weigh heaviest are where your home is available to you, where your spouse and dependent children live, and then a longer list of secondary ties such as licences, accounts, memberships and property. Days present matter but do not decide it on their own. Because the date sets which income is in charge for the whole year, it is worth establishing deliberately and documenting at the time, rather than reconstructing it years later under enquiry.
How does cross-border tax planning work?
It starts with facts rather than structures: which countries have a claim on you, what each one taxes, and where the two overlap. From there the decisions are about order and timing — which country taxes first, where relief is claimed, and whether a filing or a certificate has to be in place before money moves rather than after. Most of the value is in the sequencing, because relief claimed late is usually relief recovered slowly. See international tax planning.
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.
