Cross-border tax terms — G

Each entry answers two questions — what the term picks out, and what changes once it applies. Neither answer needs a number, and a number in a definition tends to outlive its accuracy.

Most of these terms exist because two tax systems describe the same thing differently, or because one system has a concept the other does not. That is where cross-border files go wrong quietly: a position that is obviously right at home has no counterpart abroad, and the mismatch — rather than the rate — becomes the exposure. Each page below follows the same shape — definition, consequence, and the specific returns or elections the term reaches.

Where a term like this affects your own position, the answer depends on dates and documents rather than on the definition — which is why we start with those. Every page here carries the name of the person who reviewed it and the date they did.

• Green card test — The rule that makes a lawful permanent resident a US tax resident for as long as the status is valid, whether or not they live in the United States.
• Grossing up — Restating a net-of-tax amount to its pre-tax equivalent, needed whenever a foreign payment arrived after withholding and the credit is claimed on the gross figure.
• GILTI — Global intangible low-taxed income — a current US inclusion of a controlled foreign corporation's active earnings above a routine return on tangible assets.
• GloBE rules — The model rules implementing the global minimum tax, including the income inclusion and undertaxed payments mechanisms.
• GAAR — A general anti-avoidance rule allowing an authority to recharacterise an arrangement whose main purpose was a tax benefit, even where each step complied with the law.
• Graduated rate estate — An estate that qualifies for graduated rates for a limited period after death, subject to conditions met from the first return onwards.
• Gift splitting — The election treating a gift by one spouse as made half by each, which changes the exemption and reporting position.
• Grantor trust — A trust whose income is taxed to the settlor rather than to the trust or beneficiaries, because of powers or interests the settlor retained.
• GST/HST — Canada's federal and harmonised sales taxes.
• GIFT City — India's international financial services centre, operating on a different tax and regulatory basis from the rest of the country.

What the G entries have in common

10 terms begin with G. What the entry under this letter turns on is set out on its own page, together with the returns it reaches and what we charge to handle them. Three to start with: Green card test, Grossing up and GILTI.

Nearby letters

F — 39 terms · H — 4 terms. The full A–Z lists all 297 terms in one place.

Back to the full glossary · Cross-border tax answers · Side-by-side comparisons