Who do I speak to about my faceless assessment notice?
Nobody in particular, and that is the design. The scheme allocates the work to units rather than to a named officer, so there is no local office to visit and no individual whose view you can canvass before you commit yourself. Everything you want considered has to sit in the written response you file, with its documents attached, because the person deciding will read the record and nothing else. Practically, this changes how a reply is drafted. It has to be self-contained, it has to anticipate the obvious follow-up questions, and it has to be filed within the window stated in the notice.
I live in Canada, how do I respond to an Indian notice?
Through the account the notice was issued against, which means recovering access to it first. That is often the slow part: the registered mobile number and email address belong to a life the taxpayer left behind, and the verification routes assume both still work. Sort the credentials out before drafting anything, because the deadline in the notice runs whether or not you can log in. Your location is not the obstacle. The response is filed electronically with its documents attached, and a representative in India can be authorised to file on your behalf where the account permits it.
Can I ask for a hearing in a faceless assessment?
You can ask, in writing, and whether one is granted is not yours to decide. The process is built to be conducted on the documents, and a hearing, where it happens at all, happens by video rather than across a desk. Plan on the assumption that you will not get one. That means the written submission carries the whole case: the facts stated plainly, every assertion tied to an attached document, and the awkward points addressed rather than saved for a conversation that may never take place. Treat a hearing, if it comes, as a chance to clarify rather than to explain.
What happens if I miss the date in the notice?
The assessment is completed on the material already on the record, which usually means on the authority's own view of your income. Nothing pauses because you were unwell, travelling or unaware. The deadline runs from the notice rather than from when you opened it, which is the trap for anyone whose registered contact details are out of date. If the date is close and the documents are not ready, file what you have with an explanation of what is following, rather than filing nothing. If an order has already issued, the question is no longer the response. It is the appeal, which has a clock of its own.
My Indian notice went to an old email address, what now?
Service is treated as effective on the details registered against your account, so an unread notice is still a served notice. Two things follow. Update the registered email address and mobile number now, before anything else is pending, because doing it under deadline pressure rarely works. And check the account for what else has issued: where one notice went to a stale address, others usually did too, and the earliest of them is the one whose deadline has already run. Then deal with the oldest item first. The order of work is set by the dates, not by which letter reached you.
Can I explain an Indian assessment order to the CRA instead?
No. An Indian order is challenged in India, on Indian time limits, and a Canadian filing cannot correct it. What the two systems do share is the consequence: the Indian tax finally determined is what a Canadian foreign tax credit is measured against, so an order you intend to appeal is not yet the final figure. Deal with them in the right order. Confirm or fix the Indian liability first, then align the Canadian year to it. Reversing that order tends to produce a claim here that has to be revisited once the appeal concludes.
Which countries have a tax treaty with the United States?
Around sixty, including Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Australia and most of western Europe — but the list matters less than the terms, because each treaty caps rates and allocates income differently. Two countries with treaties can produce opposite answers on the same pension or the same royalty. What decides your position is the specific article covering your income type. See our country guides.
Branch or subsidiary — which should we use to expand?
A branch keeps one taxpayer: results consolidate at home, losses are usable sooner, and the exposure is that the branch is a permanent establishment whose profit the host country taxes, sometimes with a branch tax on repatriation. A subsidiary is a separate taxpayer with limited liability and local rates, at the cost of withholding on dividends home and transfer pricing on everything between them. The deciding facts are usually expected losses, liability and exit plans. See branch against subsidiary.
