How is my property valued when I stop being resident?
Systems that impose a charge on emigration generally treat the assets you hold as having been disposed of on the day residence ended, at their value on that day, and tax the gain that has accrued to that point. No sale takes place and no money changes hands, so nothing produces the figure for you. It has to be established by valuation, asset by asset, as at that single date. Which assets are caught, and which are excluded, is a matter of each country's own rules. The valuation work is the same either way: fix a value at a date, and evidence it.
Why is the departure valuation the figure most likely to be challenged?
Because it is the whole computation and there is no transaction behind it. On an ordinary sale the tax follows a price agreed between two parties at arm's length, and there is little to argue about. On departure the gain is calculated from a value nobody paid, prepared by a valuer the taxpayer instructed, at a date chosen by the taxpayer's own move. Every input is therefore open to question: the basis of value, the information relied on, the discounts applied. A report that shows its reasoning survives that scrutiny. A bare figure invites it.
Can I use the price I later sold the asset for as the departure value?
Not as a substitute, though it is worth keeping. The value required is the one at the date residence ended, and a later price reflects everything that happened in between: trading since, market movement, a buyer with a particular reason to want the asset, and terms that may include earn-outs or restrictions. Where a sale follows closely and on open terms, it is useful corroboration and should be in the file. Where it follows years later, it says almost nothing about the earlier date. If your figures differ, be ready to explain the difference rather than hope nobody asks.
Do I need a valuation for shares in my own company when I leave?
If they are within the charge, yes, and this is usually the hardest asset in the file. There is no market price, the buyer and seller are the same person for practical purposes, and the inputs a valuer needs are held inside the business. Commission the work before you go, settle the basis of value and the date in an instruction letter, and give the valuer the management information they ask for rather than the figures you would prefer. Keep the instructions, the report and the underlying information together. That package, not the number, is what answers a later query.
What date do I value at if I leave part-way through the year?
The day residence ended, not the start or end of the tax year and not the date of the flight, if those differ. Establishing that date is often a piece of work in its own right, because it depends on when the connections that made you resident were actually broken rather than on when you intended to leave. Value the assets at that date and record how the date itself was determined. Where the date is arguable, the valuation may need to hold at more than one candidate date, and the file should show which was used and why.
What happens to my valuation if I return to the country later?
It stays relevant, because it is part of the history of each asset's cost base and the two events have to be read together. A later return may bring the same assets back into charge at a fresh value, and the gap between what was taxed on departure and what is recognised on the return is where double taxation or a lost step-up tends to appear. Some systems have specific relief where the departure charge was paid and the asset is still held. Keeping the departure file intact is what lets any of that be claimed years afterwards.
Do I pay Canadian tax if I live abroad?
Only if you remain a Canadian tax resident. Residency follows your ties rather than your address, so leaving while your home and family stay usually does not end it. Non-residents remain taxable on Canadian-source income — employment or business income earned in Canada, dispositions of taxable Canadian property, and passive amounts subject to withholding. The year you leave is its own exercise, with a deemed disposition and its own schedules. See leaving Canada.
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.
