What is my cost base for property I owned before I moved here?
In systems that tax gains from the date residence begins, the cost base for that purpose is generally the value of the asset on the day you arrived, not the price you originally paid. The gain that accrued while you were elsewhere sits outside the new country's charge, and the arrival value is the line between the two. That makes the arrival figure a number you will need on a return years or decades later, when the asset is sold. It is also a number that has to be evidenced as at a date that will by then be long past.
Which assets need a valuation on the day I arrive?
Anything whose value on that day cannot be looked up afterwards. Listed shares, funds and currency balances can be reconstructed from published data, so a note of the holdings and the date is usually enough. Private company shares, partnership interests, real property, land, unquoted debt, intellectual property, artwork and jewellery cannot, and those are the ones to value while the date is current. Apply the same test to anything held jointly or through a structure, because the asset to be valued is your interest in it rather than the whole. Start from the list of what you own, not from what feels valuable.
Can I get a valuation years after I moved?
A retrospective valuation can be prepared, and for some assets it is defensible. Real property has comparable transactions that survive. Private company shares are harder, because the accounts of the period tell you what the business reported and not what a buyer would have paid, and the information a valuer would have relied on at the time may no longer exist. The further back the date, the more the report rests on assumption rather than evidence, and the more of it a reviewer can question. A valuation prepared close to the arrival date is a document; one prepared much later is an argument.
Who can value shares in my own private company at the arrival date?
Someone independent, working to a stated basis of value, with the instructions and the date recorded in writing. The report should say what was valued, at which date, on what basis, what information was relied on and what was assumed. Keep the instruction letter with the report: without it, nobody later can tell whether the valuer was asked the right question. Where the company's own accounts are the main input, note the period they cover and how the valuer bridged from the accounting date to the arrival date. The reasoning is what makes the figure usable, not the figure itself.
How do I fix the value of a foreign asset in local currency?
Two steps, both dated. First value the asset in the currency it is denominated in, as at the day residence began. Then convert at a rate for that date, and record which published source the rate came from. Keeping the two steps separate matters, because a reviewer may accept the asset value and question the conversion, or the reverse, and a single blended figure cannot be unpicked. Where the asset and your reporting currency are different again, note the chain. The exchange source and date belong in the file next to the valuation, not in somebody's memory.
Do I need an arrival valuation if I am not planning to sell?
The valuation is not for the sale, it is for the date. Its whole purpose is to record something that can only be observed once, on the day residence began, and intention has no bearing on whether that day passes. Plans change, assets are sold on divorce, death, emigration or an unexpected offer, and structures are reorganised for reasons that have nothing to do with tax. When any of that happens, the arrival value will be asked for and will no longer be observable. Documenting it is a small cost paid once against a figure you cannot recreate.
What happens if the two countries disagree about which of them can tax me?
The treaty has a procedure for exactly that. You apply to the competent authority in your residence country, which takes the case up with its counterpart, and the two negotiate a position that removes the double taxation. Some treaties add binding arbitration if they cannot agree. It is slow and it runs on documents, so the practical work is preserving the record and filing protective claims while the clock runs. See our treaty work.
How much foreign income is tax-free in Canada?
None of it is tax-free for being foreign. A Canadian resident is taxed on worldwide income, so foreign salary, interest, dividends, rent and gains all go on the return, converted to Canadian dollars. What genuinely reduces the bill is the basic personal amount, the credit for foreign tax already paid, and any treaty article that exempts a specific type of income. The reporting thresholds people have in mind — the foreign property statement, for one — govern reporting, not exemption. See the foreign tax credit.
