Who files my foreign asset disclosure if I have two accountants?
Whichever one is named against it in writing, and if neither is, the answer in practice is nobody. This is the usual gap between two advisers on a cross-border file, because a foreign-asset disclosure belongs to one country's return while describing the other country's assets. The adviser here reads it as depending on foreign information he does not hold; the adviser abroad reads it as part of a return he is not preparing. Both are reasoning sensibly. The fix is not better goodwill but a written list of filings with a name against each, that one included.
How do two accountants split a cross-border tax return?
By filing, not by subject. Splitting by subject — one takes the property, one takes the pension — sounds tidy and breaks down immediately, because a single return contains all of it and somebody has to sign the whole thing. A workable division names each return and schedule, says who prepares it and who reviews it, and then deals separately with the inputs: which figures one adviser must produce before the other can finish, in what form, and by when. The subject-matter expertise still sits where it sits; what gets divided is responsibility for filings and documents.
Which country's tax return has to be prepared first?
Usually the one whose figure the other needs, and working that out is a scoping question rather than a technical one. Where credit for tax paid in one country is claimed in the other, the claim depends on what the first country actually assessed, not on what its draft return showed. If the second return is prepared first, it either waits or relies on a number that may move. So the boundary between advisers should record the order as well as the division: what has to exist before each return can be completed, and who is responsible for producing it.
Who replies when the tax authority writes about a shared file?
The person written against that filing at the start, which is why it is worth writing down before any letter arrives. Correspondence is where an undefined boundary becomes expensive: the letter has a date on it, and while two advisers establish whose it is, that date approaches. The line to draw is per filing rather than per authority, and it should cover three things — who drafts the reply, who holds the documents it will need, and who is authorised with that authority to read the account behind it. Those can be three different people, and often are.
What usually gets left out when two advisers share a file?
The items that sit between the two countries rather than inside either: a disclosure of foreign assets, an election made in one country about something that happened in the other, a treaty position that has to be claimed consistently on both returns, and the reconciliation of a figure that appears in both under different rules. Each of those looks like somebody else's work from either desk. A boundary that lists only the main returns will miss all four. The test for a scope is whether every schedule and every election has a name against it.
Should my lawyer or my accountant handle this part?
Whichever is engaged for it in writing — but the real risk on a cross-border file is the space between them. A structure drafted by a lawyer has tax consequences that depend on facts only the tax adviser sees; a filing position assumes the documents say what the lawyer drafted them to say, which is worth confirming rather than believing. When the boundary is written, it should say who reads the documents against the filing, who is told when a structure changes, and which adviser the other should expect information from. That space is where work is both duplicated and dropped.
How many days can I spend in a country before I become tax resident?
It depends on the country, and a day count is only ever the start. Many use a threshold in a tax year, some also look at averages across several years, and some have no day test at all and decide on where your home and life are. Two countries can both conclude you are resident, which is what the treaty tie-breaker exists to settle. Counting days without checking the tie-breaker is how people end up filing as resident nowhere. See the residency tie-breaker.
How would a foreign tax authority know I am resident there?
Mostly from information you or your bank already provided. Account-opening forms ask you to self-certify tax residence, and that certification is reported between authorities under the Common Reporting Standard or, for US accounts, under the FATCA framework. Beyond that: employer and payroll filings, property registries, immigration records and the tax filings of anyone who paid you. The realistic planning assumption is that the data arrives. See FATCA and information reporting.
